We get the women and children into the tunnels, the men stay in the houses with guns, just in case anyone tries to rush them. I leave Gary and Sara along with Billy, to take care of this group, while I work my way through the tunnel to the orchard, then work my way to the new group, hoping they are not in the same mess we are. We talked about coming up through the tunnel into the barns, but decided that if anyone doing that was caught, it would alert the attackers to the tunnels. Then we would be in a world of hurt. I am saying a silent prayer just about every step of the way. The tunnel didn’t seem this long the last time that I came through it just to check it out. Of course that time our lives were not in danger, and it was more for fun than an emergency.
I am carrying three weapons with me tonight. I figure any trouble I might see will be up-close so I am carrying two .45 automatics with silencers that I found at the Marine base, and my familiar 9mm Sig. I am also carrying night vision glasses, for when I get out of the tunnel. It seems like hours, but it can’t be more than twenty minutes, before I get to the end of the tunnel and out of the shed. This is one of the darkest nights I can remember, it’s a good thing I have the night vision glasses with me. It’s also a good thing I have traveled this trail dozens of times this past summer, so I know exactly where I am going. I usually take one of the more worn paths to the other groups, but this time I am trying to go between the groups, and get to the newest group, which is a couple of miles away.
I don’t dare try to call them, because they will probably intercept our conversation, and if they are not already there, may get there sooner than I can. Luckily the leaves have not started falling yet, so I can walk the path with very little noise. This fact proves to be a lifesaver at least for me, because after about fifteen minutes I hear voices coming from the area where Barbs group lives. These are definitely not any of the men from there, they are complaining about having to go to Doc McEvoys group to help out there. They don’t know which group it is, but from their conversation I can figure that out. Apparently they are carrying ammunition to that group. I see them long before they see me. In fact I’m not sure they ever do see me, or the small muzzle flash from that .45. We will have to bring the backhoe out here to bury them later today.
I get to the farm without further incident, and sure enough the attackers must not know about this group, because there is no sign of any activity that is not totally normal. I know the people in these homes very well, but Ken and Tim are still very much surprised to see me show up at this hour of the morning. It only takes a few minutes to explain the situation and be on our way back with twenty good fighting men. From what I heard, Doc McEvoys place has the least attackers at it, so we decide to head there. We are all equipped with night vision glasses and just about all of us are carrying weapons with silencers, or have guns as well as a bow and arrows.
Since the attackers here are expecting their friends, when we get to the first barn, where the attackers are, Tim and I decide to go right in pretending to be the reinforcements. We are wearing hooded sweatshirts with the hoods up. There are just four men in this barn, and two of those are sleeping. The two that are awake, start to complain about us taking so long, but a six inch blade in your chest can quiet even the biggest mouth. The other two, will never wake up in this world. In the other barn, there are apparently three more men. Don puts an arrow through the chest of one of them that gets just a few feet too close to the door. Ken and Rod rush the other two taking them out without firing a shot.
We are very careful when we let the men in the houses know that they are no longer being held under siege. We now have enough men to break into groups, and go to the other groups to get them freed as well. Luckily we have the silencers, because it is not quite as easy at Barbs group. It’s a good thing we get some reinforcements from Josh and his team once we finally get the attackers pinned down. We get word that the others were able to get Ryan’s group freed as well. The sun is starting to come up when we start for our group, and when we are still a good half mile away from the tunnel mouth, we hear the report of a .50 talking loud and clear. We figure either they found out what we have been doing, or they have a predetermined signal to start the attack. Some of our group continues on to the tunnel, while the rest of us head for the farm planning to come up behind the barns, and hopefully catch the attackers off guard.
As we get closer, we hear sporadic gunfire, and then we hear motorcycles going in the other direction about as fast as they can go. We are hoping it’s not our men running. Tim and I come up on the first barn from the rear and there is no sign of anyone in or around here. We make our way to the other barns, expecting to be shot at, but nothing happens at any of them. When we come up behind the one closest to our house, we hear people inside so we cautiously sneak in the lower door trying to see who is here. Gary sees me at the same time I do him, and it’s a good thing we recognize each other, or we may shoot each other.
There is a group of our men and some women carrying guns going through the barns making sure that no one is hiding. Just as we are about to go into the house, we hear that nasty laugh and a motorcycle speeding away. Three of us fire at him, but with hand guns it would take a miracle to hit a target that far away. I decide to quit trying, when I hear the report of that .50 again and see the rider on that motorcycle fall off and roll to a dead stop. The motorcycle runs into a tree and stops much quicker than the man did. A couple of our young men have their motorcycles out now, so they go to make sure the rider is not getting up. I look up to where the shot came from and see Teddy smiling at me from the attic window. Tim pokes me in the ribs, and points to the wall of the barn.
“Your son shot that big hole in the side of the barn; you can fix it before winter gets here.”
He is smiling when he says it, I think we both know what we will find when we get up to where that hole is. Everyone is coming out of the houses now. Robin comes up to me along with Melissa, Dayna, Becky, and the children all except Teddy. Teddy is walking toward us, when Karen tells me Teddy deserves a spanking for leaving the tunnel when mommy told him not to. When he gets to us he hands me my .50 and Robin smacks his butt lightly. We all agree that since the threat is over, at least for now, that maybe we should go back inside where it is at least warm, and have some breakfast.
When we are all seated around the table, Teddy tells me that Gunny and Grampa Jon came to him and told him what he had to do. They told him to get my .50 with the heat scope, find the leader in the barn, and shoot him, and anyone else he can see with that gun. They told him that the bad guys were getting ready to attack, and that some of our family would get killed unless he stopped them first. He says he was scared like he was in Rochester, but they stayed with him like they did there, and told him exactly what to do.
“When I looked through the scope, I could see a man standing in the loft of the barn, and I could tell he was the one talking on the radio, because I could see that he had the mic in his hand, talking into it. Gunny told me to take careful aim on the man’s body and squeeze the trigger just like you always taught me. I did that and the man looked like he flew across the loft into a bunch of them. I aimed at the group and fired a couple more times, and the men started scattering. That’s when the men came out of the tunnel in the barn, and the houses, and chased the bad guys away or killed them. When I saw you shooting at that last man on the motorcycle, I figured you didn’t want him to get away, so I shot him too. I don’t like shooting men Daddy. Why don’t they just leave us alone? There is plenty of land for them to do what we have done here.”
I tell him that’s one of the biggest mysteries of life. Why some people think that they deserve everything other people work for. I’m just about the luckiest man alive to have the wonderful family that Heavenly Father has blessed me with. We are all blessed to have a man like him to call my son. We can only pray that we don’t have to take any more lives in defense of our own. Gary stops in and tells me that the last guy that tried to get away was the guy he knew from when he fir
st came to this world. That was one evil man. It’s a good thing that he will not get to hurt anyone else.
Each group takes care of burying the attackers that didn’t get away. It’s such a shame that strong men will use their lives trying to destroy, rather than to build this world. Those who could not see any reason to build the tunnels, have all come to the council and apologized for doubting the need for it. We truly pray there will never be another need to use it for defense, but experience has shown us otherwise. At least so far we have only had to bury the attackers, and none of our own. We also pray that our lives continue in that respect as well.
14
All the crops are in for the winter, and it is a good time to work on the insides of the houses. Our wives all have long lists of things that they say they can’t survive unless we do them. I remind them that they were living in a basement and moving from place to place when we met. The houses we are living in now are palatial compared to then. All that logic got me smacked, and pointed in the direction of the largest chore at the moment. None of us really mind working on the houses, actually, we are very proud of how far we have come in just a couple of years. The chore on the agenda for this week is to fix any shelves that need repair in the pantry or in the basement. Then we have a place marked off in the basement to build more shelves for storing food and other supplies.
This is not a spur of the moment project. I, actually we, have been planning it for several months now and have just been waiting for the right time. All the lumber we will need has already been cut and has been seasoning all summer. Teddy has been looking forward to this project, because we don’t get to work together, anywhere near as much as we would like to. At his age he is almost always asked to work on projects with the younger people. He doesn’t mind, but we do enjoy working together, and having the opportunity to talk together like men. Today he obviously wants to ask me something, and is not quite sure how to start. I am pretty sure it has something to do with Nickie, Mickie, Paige, Mandy, Collette, or Hope. That is unless there are more thirteen year old young ladies that I do not know.
When he does start talking it is a lot more advanced than I ever thought it would be.
“Dad, you know that Nickie and I like each other a lot. How old do we have to be before we can get married?”
I am not really ready for this conversation, he starts to say something else, but I interrupt to try to explain how important a decision like getting married is. Actually I have no idea what I should be telling him. Heck, I knew Dayna all of about four hours when we got married, but that was a totally different situation.
“T, getting married is a very big step in any mans or woman’s life, and is not something that should be rushed into. I know that girls are so pretty and they smell so nice, but sharing your life is a huge responsibility. Before you get married you have to have a good job, and you and your wife to be have to decide if you want to rent a house or buy one.”
Teddy interrupts me when I get to this point in my ramblings.
“Dad, we all have jobs that we do around the farm, and I figure when we get married we will build a house. Anyway, what I started to tell you, is that Nickie and I are thinking about getting married when we are eighteen. We asked mom if she thought that is too young, and she said I should ask you. Everyone tells us that we are too young to know whether or not we are in love, but we know we are. I know that when we are apart, we both feel like mom says she feels when you are gone for a while, like we are not a complete person without each other. Do you think eighteen is a good age?”
I tell him that I think eighteen is an excellent age. He asks if I mind if he runs to tell Nickie the good news. He doesn’t have to go very far, because she is upstairs in the kitchen helping the moms make spaghetti sauce for tonight’s dinner. She comes down to the basement to give me a hug. The hug she gives Teddy is so long that Robin tells them she is going to throw cold water on them if they keep it up. The project and the day fly by. Naturally our friends drop by to see how our shelves are coming, and all have suggestions on how to make them better. Teddy and I just tell them they can build their shelves the way they want to, and we will build ours. Tim tells Teddy that he used to be a nice guy until he started hanging around with me. He says that he is just too much like me now. Nickie lives with Tim and Charity, so Tim has to harass Ted about her as well.
“Sure just about the time that Nickie gets to be a really good cook she will marry T here and probably move in with you so you can get even fatter eating all the good food the ladies in this house cook all the time.”
Charity hears him talking, and yells into the basement that if he doesn’t like her cooking, then he can take over that little chore any time. He sure does backpedal fast. He tells her that he is just thinking about her.
“If Nickie becomes as good a cook as you, or even close, because you do everything so perfectly, then you can rest and not have to cook so many meals.”
Charity yells down that we must be drowning down here because it’s getting pretty deep up there. Nickie comes downstairs laughing and tells Teddy that she can’t wait until they can get married. Until then she says she will learn all she can from all the great examples she has to learn from. That gets a lot of comments from the husbands downstairs and the wives upstairs. The wives finally call her upstairs and set her straight about who should be in charge, when they get married. Hunger finally drives us married men back upstairs, where we get harassed unmercifully, but it’s worth it. The girls have fixed a dinner fit for a king.
We rest on Sunday, and then finish the shelves on Monday, with only a few major modifications that Dayna, Robin, Melissa, and Becky decided were necessary. They really aren’t that bad, and I can see the benefit to making the changes they requested. We want some hams for Thanksgiving, which is still a few weeks away, but we figure now is as good a time as any to increase our stores of pork. We have started smoking a lot more of the meat. Our families have learned that they love smoked pork chops, plus we have some great recipes for smoked sausages that we make out of pork and beef.
Teddy and I enjoy hunting together as well. He is really very good at it for being so young. I mentioned that to Robin, Dayna, Melissa, and Becky after the young people went to bed, and as usual they set me straight. They reminded me that in the books we read about the old west, many young men and women were making their own way in the world because their parents died or simply disappeared. Even in our families we have teens that were living on their own for months or even years before we met them. They also tell me that he is so much like his dad, what else would I expect. I’m just proud that he thinks of me as his father, and hope that I can continue to be a reasonably good example to him.
We have been hunting farther from home to allow the game fairly close to stay here, so that if we ever have to we can stay close to home for supplies. We found a truck in the building materials place that has a hoist on it and a large flatbed. When we go hunting for beef or for pork we take that truck so that we can load the large animals on it after we field dress it. It works great for getting the meat onto and off of the truck. Plus it makes it much easier to deliver it to one of the other groups, if they are in need of meat. Each group has their own smoke house to smoke small quantities of meats, but we found with the large number of people combined in all the groups, we needed a much larger smoke house to accommodate all the meat we smoke.
We have become very efficient at curing our meat that way, and have done some experimenting with different woods to give us different flavors. One of the most successful experiments, at least to me is the one where we injected maple flavor into the bacon and the breakfast sausage. Melissa, Becky, Ramona, George, and Kyle kind of supervise the smoke house. We found several books on smoking and curing meats, so they have plenty of new things to try and so far I can’t think of any that I consider failures. They found a book on different sausages, most of the time the entire area around our houses reminds those of us from the other world of some of the g
reat delicatessens we used to go to. We even found a recipe for making hot dogs, but we don’t make them exactly like the recipe. We use the good cuts of meat, but there are always lots of good small pieces of meat left when we butcher an animal, and we don’t want to waste anything that is good.
The hot dogs were a huge surprise to Dr. McEvoy. When he was a boy his family used to cook out in the backyard a lot and hot dogs were always his favorite. When we invited him and his group over for a cookout he got pretty emotional. He thanks us every time he eats a hot dog now, which is pretty often. One of the people we brought back from Rochester has a book with lots of recipes for different sauces to eat on hot dogs and hamburgers. They made a small batch to see if we would even like it and everyone wished they had made a much larger batch. They have since then and we always have some around for the burgers, hot dogs, and the sausages we like to eat.
Getting back to Teddy and me hunting and working on projects together, it took us two days to get meat enough in for all the groups that had room for fresh meat. The girls are excited because they have some new recipes they want to try. Teddy and I both agree that we will be more than willing to be the quality control specialists on this job. There is never any shortage of people to try new foods. The teens and those just younger than them are always hungry and willing to risk their stomachs in the interest of the family. Teddy and I are just putting the truck up after delivering the last of the meat to Ryan and Carol’s group. They wanted venison so we got four nice bucks. We kept two and gave them two, that’s all the room they have in their freezers. We park the truck and are walking up to the house when we see a jeep pulling onto the road to our farm from the main road.
2nd Earth 2: Emplacement Page 14
