The Free Republic of Texas 2015

by Tj Reeder

  After they left me and Jody sat and drank ice tea and just talked about nothing much, but I could tell he had something on his mind and waited for it to come out, I had a small inkling I knew what it was but just waited, finally he cleared his throat and opened and shut his mouth several times taking a few deep breaths until I couldn’t stand it and blurted out, Jody damnit! Just ask her, she may get tired of waiting!

  Well sir his face turned red and he choked on a drink of ice tea then settled down and after a bit said you think she will say yes? And how did you know what I was thinking?

  I laughed at him and said well for one thing you been acting like I did around Jade and Sally said Bob wasn’t any better , so hell yes we all know, including the Doc, so quit being a wuss and get with it, we could be outta time soon and you don’t want to be all fumble footed when the SHTF, that snapped his head up and he nodded, about that time the girls drove up and he got that deer in the head lights look all men get at this time, as the gals trooped in and flopped down the room smelled much better and all three of them looked at me then Jody then back at me, I just shrugged , at last Jody took a deep breath and blurted out to Ellen “Do ya wanna get married” well we all burst out laughing except Ellen who said is that it, the best you can do, of course she had a sparkle in her eye.

  Jody looked in a panic and jumped up and took off out the door, well now we were really wondering, but he ran to his truck and was dumping the glove box and then ran back in the door banging shut behind him.

  Here he said shoving a small dusty black box at her, Sally having had enough took it from him, cleaned it off and handed it back and said now open it and take it out and show her the pretty you got there, Jody just sat down and took the box and opened it and said Ellen this isn’t the way I planned it nor the way I wanted it to be but will you marry me?

  He opened the box and took out a beautiful ring, nothing too over the hill but very nice! Ellen looked at the ring and started crying and jumped into his lap and said yes, yes, yes, against his chest. And that was how the most….well not romantic, nor boring, but I guess the most entertaining engagement we had ever seen took place on the porch of the ranch.

  After that and after the ring was on Ellen’s finger the ladies kicked us out and said don’t come home till dark! As we walked out Jody said can they do that? Do what says I? You know, just kick us out like this, I looked at him a moment and said welcome to the real world you poor fool!

  Then being men and having important stuff to do we went to the range and shot till dark, joined by Bob and John who laughed at my version of the story, which made Jody laugh and all was well after that.

  John said to Bob well ya know it’s not every day a man gets to order an arsenal and get engaged all on that same day.

  Dinner was a great time, the ladies really put on a feed, the chatter about the coming wedding never stopped and then they all started casting eyes at John who said not only no but hell no!!

  Of course right then one of the ladies from the clan walked in with some dish’s and Johns head swiveled like it was not attached to his neck, the ladies all smiled and us guys just shook our heads, poor John was doomed and never heard the shot!

  About a month after Jody and Ellen agreed to tie the knot the place was buzzing with activity, the women of course took over all the details, Ellen said she wanted to be married just like Jade had been, clan style, except changing her name wasn’t an option due to her Medical licenses, Jody said it wasn’t a problem that it was really between the husband and wife, it had been very important to Jade so it was done.

  On the day of the wedding Jim Daniels drove in with his family, we hadn’t seen much of him since he became Sheriff, him being very busy cleaning up a 40 year old mess, but it was coming on real well and the county folks really liked him and took to calling the big reserve dept. the County National Guard, which was good for a laugh but had people in the state house looking a bit funny.

  A lot of the neighboring counties were taking a very close look at their elected officials and checking the books, nothing on the scale of our county had been found yet but we all felt there would be some younger Sheriff’s winning elections in the next election cycle.

  Jim said he had been approached by several of the men running for office about the size of his reserve force; he really didn’t have much of an answer for them because he couldn’t really talk about the ranch.

  After a few minutes of thinking Jody said “well Jim, how about you pick out those you really trust and who you think have the best chance to win in the fall and set up a meeting and some of us will come in and have a talk with them all, Jim thought that was a great idea and said he would get right to it as soon as the weekend wedding was over.

  All the folks who needed places to sleep for the next three nights were put up in the dorms which were all set up for the future ranch workers who would be living here when the SHTF.

  Jim and his family were using a 2 bed room appt in the married dorm, his wife Joan had never been to the ranch so she looked around a bit, noticing a lot but not commenting then asked where the ladies were and we pointed her towards the back of the house where she found Jade and Mary, Jade said later that Joan looked at her tats and said nice!! My husband would kill me but I like it!!! She was adopted into the circle right then and there, poor Jim didn’t have a clue how his life had just turned.

  I was a bit unsure how Ellen’s parents and siblings were going to handle this wedding, they seemed like real nice folks but a bit unsure around the clan folks, her dad would of course stand with her, I was just hoping it went well.

  With the coming of dark and the full moon the drums began to beat and we followed the ancient way of the clan, almost all of the guests had been here before and knew what was expected and those who hadn’t were told what to do.

  I was amazed at the things I saw that I had no memory of from my wedding to Jade, I stood with Jody and even though I had be there done that I still was unsure of my place but in the end it all worked out and the acceptance by the two clans of the other it was done, the old shaman seemed happy so we all took that as a sign.

  Ellen’s dad had really stood up well, her mom seemed a bit shook by what must seem to be a Pagan wedding but when told that in the morning there would be a very small private “ proper” wedding she seemed ok with it all.

  The feasting started and it really did howl!! I swear there were hundreds of people there, many I had never seen but all were vouched for by people we did know and passed thru the gate by a hard eyed bunch of men who looked like they should be packing rifles but weren’t, of course there was several sitting close and all had handguns out of sight. All were from Jim’s reserve department and were being paid by Jody who argued it out with Jim, and of course won, it did relieve the local crew to be able to come to the wedding .

  All were also given a chit for 50% off anything in the store except guns and a years free membership to the range, which John said was cool because they would all become customers in the gun shop, John was a peddler in a past life I’m sure.

  One surprise had come several hours before the wedding was to start, Miss Ellie called and said Bill Slade the Ranger had called and asked if he and his wife could come to the wedding, she called Jody who got the number and called Bill back and said please come and that had he known where to reach him he would have called himself.

  Bill and his wife were both well received by us and made to feel very welcome, they were given quarters in the dorm where Jim and his wife were staying, all in all it was a good turn out and wedding, watching the goings on between some of the clan girls and the local boys who worked for the ranch businesses, I predicted a few more weddings down the road.

  After the short “regular” wedding in the morning the party went on as had mine and Jades, it was a three day affair, but the third day was mostly sleeping off the nights before.

  After most of the guests left the committee asked Bill and Jim to stop in before they left, while t
he ladies took a tour of all the gardens and other points of interest.

  After we were all settled, Jody asked Jim how his training was going for the new reserve deputies; Jim said he was very pleased and that he was also sitting in on a lot of the classes to refresh some things that had got pushed down by the old sheriff.

  He was real pleased with the Law classes which were being taught by one of the lawyers from Jody’s Dallas connection, what he didn’t know was that Jody had hired one of their young Lawyers to volunteer to teach the classes.

  What was even more funny was that after the first few weeks the young man said he no longer needed to be paid because he was really enjoying teaching the men, and as a side note, he had asked to become a reserve himself even though it meant a long drive over to work when he could, being single he had the time and was also looking at the county attorneys job down the road as the man who had stepped into the open seat was retired and wanted to get back to golf and fishing, so it looked like the county would soon have a badge wearing ,gun toting county attorney! How sweet was this?

  Bill just sat and listened and smiled a bit and then dropped his bomb, he said it seem that the Rangers were thinking about setting up an office in that part of the state and had been looking for the few men to man it, And Bill had put his name into the hat and looked like a shoo-in for the job along with 2 others who he had kinda nudged into following his lead, this caused me to raise my brows, but I noticed Jody seemed to not be surprised a bit.

  Bill said since he and his wife couldn’t have kids it was just the two of them and when they sold their home in Dallas they would be looking for a place to build here in this area, I took a bit longer to get the picture then I should have but it was now clear! Jody looked smug!

  We were keeping a close watch on the world events but not even as close as Song was, he kept us updated on the real events not the crap the hair sprayed talking heads on the boob tube were babbling about.

  There was troubling events all over the world, some very troubling, like the fact that Israel had had it with the Palestinian bombers and were planning on showing them what a real all out Jihad looked like, they seemed to think it might wake up the survivors and if not then they would truly end it once and for all along with most of the Muslim world, this was very scary news because not one media outlet anywhere had this story, our government was working overtime to try to head it off, but the last attack had been the last straw for Israel, the PLO had used RPG’s on 3 school buses killing over 150 school kids only days before and not a peep out of the worlds media, this seemed impossible but was the truth or Song would not have told us.

  Africa was going thru it’s annual mass murder of tribal factions, every tin pot dictator with a dozen gunmen under him was declaring himself king.

  China and Russia were being very quiet, which was scary in its own right.

  The troops in the Middle East were getting stretched thinner and thinner, so much so that sooner or later some unit was going to do a Custer and then the chit would truly hit the rotator.

  We just kept prepping, the dorms were filling up as more and more people were brought in, all had some kind of skill that was going to be needed.

  Live stock was bought for breeding on a small scale for now, but we had the means to expand it when needed, we could only shelter a limited number of animals so we picked well with the help of the Vet crew.

  Horses were a problem because they eat so much more then a cow and unless on a true working ranch were not used enough to be worth the effort, but we had a small herd of mares with a good stock of supplies for Artificial insemination which was better then having to feed and deal with several stud horses, we had both saddle and work breeds, on thing Doc insisted on was storing the means of breeding our own Mule teams.

  We now had a saddle maker set up in a small shop in the mall, one who could also build harnesses for the work stock, he had a very good supply of hides and the equipment for doing all the work along with his two sons who were learning the trade, the local ranchers were keeping him busy so he was a happy camper.

  It seemed to be a never ending task to keep up with all the things needed for this end of the world project but we were working on it, It’s like a woman sending her hubby to the store with a list, knowing he will come back with everything but what was on the list, now make the list big enough to supply a large population through a few years of really hard times, now, would you send the men to shop? That’s why we guys made two lists, one for the girls to deal with and one for us guys to deal with. Simple huh?

  When they asked us guys why in an end of the world situation did we feel the need to stock up on a box car load of beer, our answer?

  Well babes, why the box car of hair spray, ya know, sleeping alone ain’t so hard to do, it just getting used to sleeping on the floor that sucks!

  We did turn the ladies loose on the food stores and hygiene products to keep us all clean and healthy while we worked on the protection issues.

  When we guys got together to discuses Johns plan to buy out half the weapons production of a COM block country he said that he was having trouble getting the quality he wanted and that most of the stuff being imported today was crap.

  Jody said he would look into it and left the room to make a call or two, John and I went on putting an ammo order together, he wanted only Wolf Poly coated ammo because the US made stuff was just too high priced and the other stuff on the market was suspect as to age and quality.

  He was trying to get a discount on a Simi load to start which were about 40 pallets with a hundred thousand rounds per pallet! That was 4 million rounds!!! But his plan was to have enough to barter or to arm an army if need be. The problem was finding that much in one spot, Jody came back in as we were discussing the need for that much ammo, he said he was good with it and that he had something going on some top of the line Russian AK’s from the best factory the Russians had in their glory days…

  I looked at him and he smiled at me, I had a feeling where the call had gone and who was “handling it for us” but I kept quiet on it, he did ask John if 5000AK’s would be enough? Causing John to choke, it seemed like a lot to me too but I had a feeling it would come through without a hitch, he also said he had mentioned ammo too so that was taken care of.

  John said while Jody was at it he should have located some belt fed squad weapons and some 50 ma deuces, Jody said he was working on that too…John just handed Jody his long shopping list and said here Boss you handle it.

  Over the next few weeks trucks were pulling in daily with loads of goods the ladies were ordering, they were filling up the basements of the mall and more was being moved by the ranch crews to the shelters and tunnels.

  All of us in the committee got together and walked thru every stash and checked it for any holes in the inventory, we found none, the ladies were on the ball.

  They had everything from A to Z and by the ton! Heirloom seeds by the thousands all sealed in tins, I doubt there was a thing they had forgotten, I could only hope us guys had done as well….

  That evening Sally said “We are gonna look pretty silly with all this stuff if nothing ever happens ain’t we? “We all laughed until Bob said well remember Y2K? Sally said yea why? Bob said well ya know Y3K is coming! Sally tossed a pillow at him and the laughter was good and relaxing, I guess it showed how uptight we had all got to be in the past year and several months since we started the project.

  The amount of money spent was awesome but at the same time all the businesses we had started were showing a decent profit and were helping pay for the prep goods so it wasn’t all bad, and what would I have been doing with it if Jody hadn’t come along? Not a damn thing, just waiting to die; now I had so much to live for.

  At the latest committee meeting Jody said he thought we should build a hidden bunker in the woods where the ever vigilant hunters of the clan would keep a watch on it. the big problem being how to keep things quiet about it, we brainstormed it a while until Bob suggested
we look at hiring the guy who did the tunnels from the dorms to the barns, he was already aware that we were prepping for something and had proven he could keep his mouth shut .

  Jody called him and he showed up the next day, very happy for work, he said things were getting real bad out there which got a conversation going about other projects on the place, Harry said that if there was enough he would buy a used concrete truck and run it back and forth to the nearby plant and handle the pour himself, closing another door to the public about the ranch, we gave him the nod and he said he’d get back in a few days, in the mean time he had his foreman bring out his backhoe to start the dig.

  We walked over the area looking for a way thru the trees that wouldn’t leave big foot prints to the job site and not require dropping trees, the site was accessed from the big pathway into the village area but turned off before it,