2nd Earth 2: Emplacement

by Edward Vought

  During this time, I have been working my way through a run-down three story building across the street, making my way through piles of debris to get to the third floor. I am talking to myself, telling me, that in no uncertain terms this is the last time I go looking for people to join our group. It’s too darn cold, and I am getting too darn old to be climbing around like this. I no sooner get into place, when I get a call on my radio asking me if I am in place yet. I am still a little upset, so I tell them that yes I am in place, and as soon as I can catch my breath I will give them a report. This is what puts the frosting on the cake. I start to look through the scope of my rifle, when I hear Sara’s voice telling me to look to the right side of the building across the street. Now what the heck is she up to?

  I look through the scope, and there are all my friends, and the people we found along with the four women and what appear to be the four men who kidnapped them. Sara is smiling, and asks me what I am doing way over there, when they are all way over here. I am sorely tempted, but I don’t shoot her, at least not yet. I work my way back down those same stairs that I worked so hard getting up, just a few minutes ago, and walk across the street to see what is going on. I may shoot someone just for the fun of it. Teddy meets me halfway and tells me he is sorry that I went to all that trouble for nothing, but that the truth is really funny. I tell him that I will be the judge of that, and right at this moment I can’t think of anything that will make me laugh.

  I meet everyone at the door to the building, and I think they can tell I’m in no mood for humor right now. I ask the men what ever happened to doing things the way we planned. At first they tell me to lighten up, but then say they are sorry, and fortunately there was never any danger. We will discuss this later, now I want to know what the heck is going on. Gary and Sara come over and start to explain what happened.

  “Jon, when we looked in, we noticed that the women did not look like they were being treated badly, and the men didn’t appear to have any firearms, so we decided to see what exactly is going on. We walked in with our guns raised ready to fire if need be, but the women told us to stop, and the men threw their arms up so fast they dropped the big forks they were cooking with. It only took a couple of minutes to find out what has been happening. Did you ever see a movie about seven brothers who kidnap seven women?”

  I inform Sara that I don’t see seven brothers standing here, so what has that got to do with this situation.

  “In this case there are only four brothers, but the story line is the same. They have been trying to find wives, but whenever they went near any women, they would run because they were afraid that they wanted to sexually assault them. They kidnapped these four young ladies, and have been trying to show them that their intentions are honorable. They are only looking for wives.”

  Actually, looking at these guys, it’s easy to see that it would be difficult for them to capture anyone that could fight like that young lady earlier. These guys look about as tough as the three that Dayna called her brothers, when we first came here. You would never know that those three are some of our best fighting men and hunters now. I ask them what we are going to do about this new development. They say that they were waiting to ask me what we should do. I ask the guys and the women, if they think they can live in the same community together, knowing that the men are not going to assault them. They say they are sure they can, Lindsay says she will kick anybody’s butt that tries to assault her. I have no doubts about that. We have just about enough room for everyone to fit into our bus, so we decide to take everybody back. We find another woman and her two children on the way back, but we can squeeze them in.

  We go back a different way than we came down, and we find some very interesting buildings, and other items on the way back. There is room for our new people to move into the farm where Billy and Ramona live. The young men we brought back are staying in the dormitory for now. Now that the women know they are not predators, they seem much more interested in getting to know them. When we finally get everyone settled and taken care of, Teddy and I get to go home and relax. Naturally Sara is just leaving when we get there, she smiles and tells me she thinks I could take Lindsay, if we went more than three rounds. Then she pats me on my behind as I walk past her. I know exactly what is coming, Teddy does as well. He is already smiling when Dayna, Robin, Melissa, and Becky ask how my trip went, then start laughing. I forgot to mention that my eye is almost swollen shut from where Lindsay caught me with her elbow, when she jumped at me. The kisses that I get from my young ladies and not so young ladies make it just about worth the whole trip.

  2

  The days go by, and the new people thank us every time they see us for coming to bring them back here with us. Bob and his group stopped on the way back to get a couple very large bags of the seeds to grow peanuts. Frank, Tom, and Eric are reading everything they can to learn how to grow some different crops. The young lady Lindsay, and her sister Hope, brought back something that I didn’t even notice at the time, but it has sure caused a stir in our community. They brought back, what I consider a very nice, acoustic guitar. I know that’s not exactly an item that should cause much discussion, but you have to remember that just about all of our family has known nothing more than to survive, until recently. Lindsay and Hope can strum the strings a little, but don’t know how to play very well. Actually just being able to strum the strings gives them an edge over my musical talent.

  Fortunately, many of our family members that came from the other world have much more talent musically than I do. Morgan and Jenna seem to be the most talented people in the family, followed closely by James, Mike, Ken, Sara, Gary, and even Tim, have played a musical instrument when he was young. Doc Betty plays piano and says that she has really missed being able to relax by playing sometimes. I asked her why she hasn’t played the ones that we found in the church. She says she has not seen any there, but should have guessed there should be at least one, if not more. We remembered that every time we have used the chapel portion of the building she has been busy watching someone sick or injured, or delivering a baby. We went over to the church for our music experts to see the pianos, and they all fell in love with them at first sight.

  There is a large piano in the chapel, and two upright pianos, in different rooms in the building that look like they were used for meetings as well. They need tuned; at least they all say they do. To my untrained ear they sound pretty good, and our family members can play them as well. All this talk about musical instruments prompts a visit to the city, to see if we can find enough instruments to satisfy everyone who wants to learn to play one. There is actually a store in the city that sold musical instruments, along with instruction books and sheet music. Our musical experts come along, and direct us unmusical types, to load every instrument in the store into the truck, and bring it back to the farm. I can recognize trumpets, clarinets, flutes, French horns, violins, guitars, banjos, mandolins, a trombone, and several types of drums. It takes two trips to get all of the instruments, and the books and music. We even found two upright pianos that went to Doc Betty’s house, and Mike and Morgan’s house. We are continuing to look for pianos and other instruments, because it seems like everyone wants to learn to play something.

  It seems as fast as we can bring the instruments to the group that someone asks if they can learn how to play them. One of the most popular instruments is one called a recorder. It’s kind of like a flute, but instead of blowing in the side you blow into the end. Many of the children love these, because they can learn to play simple songs fairly quickly. The young men all seem to want guitars or drums. They can make a lot of noise, but so far it doesn’t sound too much like music. Those that know how to play these instruments are going to start having classes to teach those who wish to learn. To find more instruments, the young people go from house to house in the city looking for them. It’s surprising how many people have guitars, pianos, and other musical instruments. We manage to find enough to give one to every member of our
community that wants one, and have some extras, in case others join our group or someone decides to change instruments.

  Most of the women want to learn to play the piano, as well as other instruments. Luckily we found enough of them to put one in every home that wants one. It was really funny, because some of our people found out they already have pianos in their homes, and had no idea what it was. Once people started learning what musical instruments look like, they are finding all kinds of them in the homes we live in. In most cases they were put up in the attic because they had no idea what they were. I have to admit that our once peaceful evenings in the winter, are now filled with the sounds of almost music, coming from every house in all the groups. The young people all seem to want to get good enough to play some of the songs we listen to on the records we have found. Our teachers are being very supportive, they tell them that the people on those records started exactly the way that they are.

  Some of our people are learning very fast, Dayna, Robin, Melissa, and Becky are all doing very well learning to play the piano. They take turns watching the children and practicing every day. The other families are doing much the same, the children practice every day, and are more than willing to show we parents what they are learning. The young adults practice in the barns. There are several groups of them learning different instruments, so they seem to band together to help each other every evening when chores are done. Our talented people are so excited about teaching they can hardly stand it. Especially Mike and Morgan, they have felt like they don’t contribute as much as some of us do. We all tell them that they contribute all the time, in many ways that perhaps aren’t as obvious as some of the others. They are very good teachers, at least in my opinion, and have much more patience than I would have teaching.

  The winter is slipping past before we know it. We have all been very busy with chores, and learning to play the instruments that most of our people want to. Our teachers formed two bands to highlight their talents, and have performed a couple of concerts for all of us the past month. They are very good. They do some songs from those we have records of, and some from the world we came from. The audience always enjoys the concerts very much, and just about everyone who is learning to play something, wants to be able to put on a concert someday as well. With the progress that just about everyone is making, none of us have any doubts that they will be able to entertain us all. As you can see, when we have a project that everyone is interested in, we become almost obsessed with it. Luckily for us most of our projects are much simpler than the musical one, but we give it our best whatever we are doing.

  A couple of months ago, James mentioned that the pork we eat tastes stronger than the pork he was used to, in the other world. He thinks this is because the pigs we kill have been running wild their entire lives. Personally I like the pork we get, I have not had any that I didn’t enjoy eating, but I admit I am no expert when it comes to meats or vegetables. Most of the last six years before coming here I ate chow hall food, which most people will tell you is not that tasty. I liked it, so maybe that tells us something about my taste buds. James suggested that we could try to capture some young pigs, and raise them here on the farm, to a good size to butcher, and then we can compare the meat. The ones raised on the farm would be fed left over vegetables and grains.

  As luck would have it, our hunters spotted some pigs, that although not real small, weighed somewhere around fifty pounds. It was not easy, but we were able to capture six of the beasts, and put them in a pen that we reinforced, because Frank told us when he was a boy his family raised pigs, and they almost always got out of their pen. Admittedly these are not your average barnyard pig. These animals have run wild since they were born, and they really don’t seem to enjoy being in the pen, nor do they like people coming into the pen with them. In fact my daughters, Kathy and Lisa, who are both twelve now, fell in love with the cute little pigs when we first brought them home. Yesterday, when they came in from feeding the pigs, they asked me if they could shoot them when the time comes.

  Every time they even start to go into the pen, those cute little pigs attack them trying to gore them with their tusks, which we cut off shortly after bringing them home, bite them, or simply run into them knocking them down whenever they can. Our pigs are getting very close to the size that James says they should be butchered in order to get the best meat to fat ratio in the meat. Everyone that lives within fifty yards of that pen can’t wait until it is time to butcher those pigs. The smell is terrible, even if the meat tastes a lot better, I still prefer to let the pigs run wild and hunt them when we want pork.

  The big day comes for us to butcher at least one of the pigs, and see if there really is any difference in the taste of the meat. We are doing this very scientifically, Don brought in a very large hog that he shot about five miles away from the house, and it was butchered yesterday. There are some very nice hams and other cuts that are getting ready to go into the smokehouse as soon as the meat from the farm pig is ready. Since Andrew actually has a scar on his leg, where he got gored by one of the pigs when it was small, we are letting him have the honors. I know that sounds cruel, but we raised the pigs for meat, and you have to kill them to eat them. That’s a fact of life on the farm. An animal is either here to work, as a pet or for food. Pigs are not much good as work animals, and they are not very good pets either, so that leaves eating.

  We decide to just use one of the pigs for our experiment. We reason that the meat should be consistent across all the pigs, since they were all captured at about the same age, and fed the same food for most of their lives. The first thing we all notice is that the farm raised pig has much more fat than the wild pigs we butcher. The hams and all the other cuts are much smaller than the others, but James assures us the taste of the meat will be much better. He doesn’t sound quite as sure as he was when this experiment started. The cuts that go in the smokehouse are all put in there, and the rest of the meat is left to season or age properly before we cook it. The big day arrives, and Jenna says she will cook a large roast from each of the animals, and a panel of taste testers will make the final determination. We will do the same thing with the bacon and the hams to be fair, and cover at least most of the types of meat.

  This little experiment has attracted quite a bit of interest, because just about everyone in all the groups likes pork, they are curious to see if it can be even better than what we have been eating. We have a panel of judges, which I refrained from, since I really like the wild pork. Jenna fixes a shoulder roast from each animal, but when it is cut in the kitchen, it is put on identical plates that are marked on the bottom, where no one but her and those helping with the food knows which meat is which. I am really impressed with how thorough everyone is being with this, what I consider kind of a silly experiment. I do cheat and taste the meat in the kitchen, and to be honest I can’t tell any difference in the taste of the meat. The farm raised meat has more fat, but taste wise I could eat either and be happy.

  Our taste testers are taking this job seriously. They taste the meat from first one plate then the other. It takes all of about fifteen minutes for the judges to agree that they can’t tell the difference in the meat. Even James agrees with the findings, we suggest that perhaps he and Jenna might want to try seasoning the meat different, if he really doesn’t like the taste. He says he likes the pork fine, he just thought that if we controlled the pig’s diet, the meat would be better. We all agree it was worth the effort to at least see if it made a difference, and we also all agree that if we were to really domesticate some pigs that the meat may be better. But since none of us care that much, and we really don’t need the added work involved with farm raising the pork, we are going to let the remaining pigs loose, and wait until they get as big as a small car to butcher them. The pigs waste no time leaving when the gate is opened. Their tusks are already growing back, so they should be okay in the woods until they fill out. We tear the pen down, and use a backhoe to move the stinky dirt to the area we keep our com
post for the gardens. We want to make sure no one gets the idea of keeping pigs around this farm again.

  3

  I mentioned that we were going to try our hand at growing peanuts this year. Frank, Tom, and Eric have been obsessed with this crop since it was first mentioned. They went a step further and decided to try planting some pinto beans this year as well. After researching both crops they found they are actually very similar. We traveled to Georgia again to get as much information as we can, and to get as much seed as we can. We felt a little foolish when we were in town with some of the wives, and they found several large bags of Virginia peanut seeds right here. We decided to plant a couple of acres of peanuts and beans on each farm to see if the soil is any better for these crops on any particular farm. So far they, along with everything else we planted, are doing quite well. Some of our winter wheat is not doing as well as it did last year. Frank says he thinks we got too much rain early this year, and some of the seeds couldn’t grow because of it.