10 Pound Bag Ch. 031-035

**** Chapter Thirty-One -- Confirmation ****

Four hours later I was dutifully awoken by the alarm, I was still tired and more than a little confused, but I pulled myself out of bed to commence the morning chores.

I stumbled out of the tent and headed to let the chickens out, but the door was already open; the dogs were out also. I peered around me and realized it wasn't morning. It was full daylight and while the sun in the sky said it was somewhere around noon, my watch claimed that it was really 5AM.

It all came flooding back, I sat down in my chair with a thump, cursing loudly and at length; heads popped out of doors with sleepy looks of confused alarm on their faces.

"It wasn't a fucking dream!" I stated.

I was joined minutes later by three shivering women and I decided to bump the fire up into high gear. I mentioned to Sonya we could all probably use some soup about now, her and Matilda wandered off to the kitchen to pull something together. What we got was a dutch oven on the fire with bread cooking in it and a kettle hanging over the center of the fire with a stew starting to assemble inside. It was like watching a cooking show on the internet.

I had to do a few things right away, I had to get heat into all of the sleeping areas and needed to find out the extent of our situation. I asked Michelle to check on our livestock feed situation and to possibly long tether the seven animals out in the pasture, Sonya went to help her.

Matilda helped me dig deep into the storage room to find the rest of my winter camping supplies, I didn't know what the weather was going to do but freezing during the night was not something I enjoyed. After extensive shuffling I found my micro wood stoves and the stove pipes, we pulled those out and I went back in to fetch one other item I had noticed that might be helpful.

Apparently during my drunken shopping spree at the gun show I had purchased a drone. I'm not a big fan of drones and it hadn't been anywhere on my shopping list, but I had bought one on that silly, fun day. I wondered what other surprises were waiting in the storage room.

This was a commercial hunting drone, top of the line apparently, its own screen which connected to its control pad and had an on-board video camera. You could record the video feed and even cast it real time to a separate larger screen. It was time to survey the area.

While the girls unpacked the micro stoves, I went through the drone instructions and put it on to charge. The battery was at 80% already and it took less than an hour to reach full charge. We started installing the wood stoves while we waited on battery charging and soup cooking.

Each of the micro stoves for the tents were one-foot square with a three-inch stove pipe that went through the stove pipe jack built into the tent. They had glass windows in their doors and put off incredible heat; when operated correctly, they were more than enough for the small spaces we had. The stove for the camper was slightly larger at 12" x 18" and it could only be installed when the sliders were extended; it was also a double decker with an oven on top of the fire box. The setups were easier than expected and I now only needed to cut some wood lengths down to size. The electric chain made short work of the wood and we transferred some coals from the fire into each firebox and started to break them in. In no time at all we had three little wood stoves heating up our sleeping spaces and smoke cheerfully puffing out the chimneys. Since I had seen the obvious signs of spring when I toured the area early I decided not to bother installing the artic liners in the tents.

Then it was time to have a look around at our surroundings. I placed the drone in the middle of the clearing and powered it up, the minute I activated the camera I had a cockpit like view of the grass the drone was sitting on; the girls were watching the same view on the big screen TV. I should have made some popcorn.

I wanted to keep it simple, so I turned on the record feature and told the drone to hover just above the ground. It was an odd way to view things and would take some getting used to. I held it at a hover about ten feet above the ground and rotated it 360°; I spun it too fast and we couldn't really see anything. I practiced a few more times, increasing altitude slowly and practicing rotating slowly; I managed to get it to do both at the same time.

I stopped the rotation pointing due east towards the Miller residence and the Missouri River, I focused on the controls and keeping everything steady as we slowly climbed up above the tall trees. As I cleared the tree tops I was stunned, looking east all I could see were rolling hills covered in old growth forest.

I stopped the ascension at 75% of max altitude and start a slow rotation, wilderness was all that came into view. Once I had rotated the full 360°, I brought the drone back down to earth. We hadn't seen any sign of other people, we seemed to be alone.

I fetched the drone and stored it away, we'd watch the video again later, but I was done exploring for the day. I fetched myself a beer and a shot, Michelle brought me a bowl of soup and some fresh pan bread. I looked at the sky and remarked that we hadn't seen or heard a plane going over all day; that statement wasn't greeted with cries of joy.

There was a lot to think and eventually talk about; for now, we ate and drank. Mostly we drank.

We did manage to do our evening chores and prepared the fires for night, but we drank; I got drunk. We shut the camp down and went off to bed.

Thankfully, there were no dreams that night.

**** Chapter Thirty-Two -- Hangover Games *****

Hangovers and roosters simply do not mix. Groggy and grumpy were words that aptly applied to me that next morning, happy and cheerful were simply not in my vocabulary. I dragged my ass out of bed and shivered in what felt like very early spring cold while I restoked the firebox, the heat started to come up but Michelle still grumbled and burrowed down further under the blankets.

I'd forgotten that I'd have to deal with the Michelle situation soon also, a comfortable fling with a friend had suddenly turned into what appeared to be a live-in girlfriend with simple a flash of a lightning bolt. I wasn't sure that this was a good thing.

I made my way outside and stoked the central fire with coals from the coal bucket, it caught quickly and I turned to the other bedrooms. I was heading towards Matilda's tent with the coals bucket when she came out, I simply handed her the bucket and asked her to take care of Sonya as well; bless her heart she merely nodded and didn't speak. My head hurt.

The central fire going I let the chickens and dogs out and went up to look after the livestock. I went through another bale feeding them and we'd picket them out later but that solution would need some work also. Unless something extraordinary happened again we were going to be here for a long time. Oscar had provided a stack of hay with the rental and there were a few rolls stacked over at the end of the field but it wasn't enough.

There wasn't enough dog food either, maybe I could supplement with a little hunting; I did have cold storage so I didn't need to wait for fall. Should be lots of rabbits in a month or two, that would help; unless something happened my dogs would have to learn to hunt.

I checked the brook and my freshwater intake hadn't been damaged in yesterday's fun; thank the heavens for small favors. All of the rig's vital signs were good but we still didn't have any sort of signal. My brief exploration yesterday said we were still in the same location but everything else had changed. Gods that made my brain hurt to think about.

I came back to the camp with an arm load of split wood to the lovely smell of fresh coffee. Fuck, that also -- we needed to slow down our coffee consumption or I'd be having dandelion tea for breakfast in the mornings, not my idea of fun. So yeah, we needed a conversation and a solid inventory check.

Sonya and Michelle were up and about, I sat down at the table to enjoy my coffee and a cigarette while I searched our library for anything I could find to give me an idea of what to do. My headache was slowly retreating and Matilda brought me a lovely plate of eggs, sausage and potatoes, it was just what my body needed.

I decided we were here for an extended term at the least and started to build a to-do list; I worked on the list out loud with the ladies as they joined me with their breakfast plates. Well, everyone but Sonya joined in working on the list, while Sonya professed loudly and absolutely that we would be rescued soon. Matilda simply stared at her and slowly shook her head. Apparently a massive forest showing up overnight was a problem Matilda had on her "Insurmountable Obstacles" list, probably right there behind volcano, tsunami and Armageddon.

Michelle, Matilda and I tried to ignore Sonya and focus on that little problem called survival. Michelle mentioned that she'd like to try fishing the brook, she thought there might be something there if she could fashion a rod for herself. I told her I had a bunch of stuff because I had planned to learn how to fish, it was worth a try. I also knew there were two rivers nearby, but I wanted to scout first before we sent an expedition down to fish the river.

Sonya was growing increasingly incensed that we wouldn't listen to her, as she loudly reasoned I could just fly the drone down the river until I found a city then somebody would come and save us. Nothing we could say would calm her and she left the table to sit by the fire and jab angrily at her non-responsive phone. I retrieved the satellite phone from the electronics bay and handed it to her. "Try that," I said, "we haven't checked it yet." Five minutes later she threw it down angrily in my lap and screamed "You disabled that too didn't you!!!".

"You arranged all this to force me to sleep with you just like those two sluts!" She was shrill, angry and desperate.

She stomped off into the camper and slammed the door.

Heck, I'd thought fishing was a great idea.

The table was silent as we listened to the banging and screaming from inside of the camper. Interrupting her fit wouldn't help anyone, I just hoped she didn't do any serious damage. She had been under terrible emotional stress even before this whatever happened. Aside from restraining her, there was nothing we could do.

After a minute or two I spoke up and said I'd go hunting and see if could pick up some spare meat that way. I already knew Matilda would be out gathering herbs, fruit and wild veggies; we could use the library to learn basic preservation and start putting up food.

I told them I'd keep exploring with the drone if nothing else just to keep us safe but that I also needed to start putting up wood. We were going through our fuel and didn't want us caught out if winter came back unexpectedly.

I was fuming angry at Sonya but I was trying to keep it under wraps; we had to remain calm and plan forward while we tried to figure out what had just happened. It wasn't easy to achieve all that with a hangover monkey on your back. I started cutting down wood lengths for our micro wood stoves when the hangover monkey struck, my gut clenched up and I raced for the camper toilet.

The camper door was locked; I pulled out my keys, opened the door and rushed for the bathroom with Sonya screaming "Get Out" at me the entire time.

Next came the blissful agony of release, the penance for alcohol abuse to my body. My colon loudly and odorifically made itself known. Thankfully a long and drawn-out penance was not required, and my session had almost ended when I heard the camper door slam and then my truck start up and drive away. "Fucking Hells Bells!" I thought, then cleaned myself up and went to go fetch my truck; I hoped against all odds she hadn't done anything really stupid.

Matilda was working at the table and pointed down the field road, but she wasn't moving so I assumed nothing horrific had happened yet. I handed her my pistol and then walked down the road to recover my truck and put the fear of god into Sonya.

The truck was parked idling in front of the Linden tree when I finally caught up, I couldn't see any damage and it wasn't stuck, so while I was angry, I wasn't upset. That came next.

As I walked up to the driver's side door Sonya started screaming at me through the window. "Get away from me you rapist asshole!" were the first words out of her mouth. That set me off.

She was trying to lock the doors when I grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. I reached inside and grabbed Sonya by the back of the neck, I jerked her out of the driver's seat and threw her rolling out into the grass.

I turned and stalked towards her, she saw the look on my face and started crawling backwards across the grass; a look of fear was in her eyes now.

I stopped walking and simply glared at her and then said in a clear, business voice, "You're fired."

I turned and walked to my truck, climbed inside and slowly backed down the field road to the camp site and parked the truck.

I got myself a drink of water, retrieved my pistol from Matilda, and went back to cutting wood.

**** Chapter Thirty-Three -- Kronos ****

Time.

Mother-fucking Time!

Fuck me, I wasn't even sure what time it was.

I looked it up in our library; searched every way I could think, but the problem was that I wasn't completely sure of exactly where we were.

Sundials are useless if you don't have a point of reference to start from. Sextants are cool but you have to have astronomic input to get reliable results. I was starting from scratch and we'd had overcast skies for two days and nights after whatever that event was; more importantly, I didn't have a sextant.

I had to make a choice so I decided that when the rooster crowed it was 5am until I learned better. The next morning when the rooster crowed and crow he did, I rolled out of bed and set my watch to 5:00AM.

One problem handled.

**** Chapter Thirty-Four -- Blame it on Luna ****

I cut up enough wood for two days, and I'd continue to do that every day for the foreseeable future. Cutting wood and stacking it gives a person time to think; it's not hard work and you do have to be careful, but it's not rocket science. I began to get some ideas.

After the wood chore was handled I practiced with the drone a little more, and I discovered it had all sorts of features that I could use: minimum altitude, maximum altitude, return to base, set base. You could even preprogram it to take a video of an area at a certain time every day. Most of those features relied on GPS but it had a dead reckoning backup mode also, I'd have to rely on dead reckoning until we started getting GPS signals again. The backup mode had to be scripted manually but that was something I was very familiar with as an IT professional. Another benefit of winning the lottery: most people can't afford to drop twenty-five thousand on a drone, but when I bought this I apparently spent the money and bought one designed for professional hunting guides. I still don't remember buying that damn drone.

I did recall buying a road atlas. I went to the truck and grabbed the atlas and started plotting my search areas based on my assumed location. Most importantly, I thought that if I hit max altitude I could probably fly the drone far enough east to confirm the Missouri river was there. I could do the same flying west and confirm that the Nemaha river was there also. That would make me a lot more certain that we were in the same location. I'd have to recharge the drone between flights, but I could get both runs made today. As a side benefit I'd get the flight command output logs to help me to write my daily survey scripts.

I poured myself a cup of coffee, set out the drones base and took flight, heading east towards the Missouri. I found the river in just a few short minutes and still had plenty of charge, so I decided to see if I could find the town of Rulo just south-east of us.

There were only trees. I brought the drone back to the base to charge; I'd view the footage later with the women. Meanwhile, I had a lot to think about.

Matilda and Kordi had returned from where-ever they'd gone; by the basket of young greens she had, I assumed she had been out gathering. I went to my gun safe and pulled out my shotgun, and I was still cleaning and oiling it when Michelle turned up. She'd been down to the creek scoping it out and doing a little fishing; she even caught a small trout which was a very positive sign.

Michelle explained that she would normally have thrown one that size back, but she thought we'd all like to see it. We cleaned it and put it in the freezer. I told her that the Missouri river was still where we had left it last but I didn't tell her about Rulo; I'd do that later tonight.

We had dinner leftovers for lunch. Sonya hadn't come back yet, but Matilda let us know that she had taken Mila to her earlier.

After lunch we discussed our plans for the rest of day. Michelle intended to inventory our feed situation and take a look at the two fields of vegetables that we had available to us. I was told I needed to run some laundry line and bring out whatever I had for a clothes washing station.

I grimaced at the thought of washing clothes by hand but Michelle assured me, with Matilda's silent backing, that Sonya was going to start pulling her weight around here. I resolved to keep myself to man business and work on some ideas about fencing the pasture; things were about to get rough around here on the female side of the world.

Michelle eyed my shotgun and asked if I had anything she could carry, I allowed that I had purchased a double-barrel also. We broke that out of storage, cleaned and oiled it and she loaded up with bird shot; I gave her a handful of shells to carry with her. I loaded my pump with two bird followed by two buckshot and then two slugs, I didn't expect to see a deer but rabbits and ground birds were plentiful. I looked at Matilda and she just shook her head. I put my pistol back in the gun safe and locked it all up.

After we cleaned up lunch Matilda put one of the llamas on lead. She and Kordi wandered off down towards the stream with the llama in tow; it looked like it was training time for her llamas.

Michelle and I had Brin, and we saddled up to do a little exploring. I was taking Lunch out for the first time, and Michelle chose Mara over Cecile to keep the horses on a comfortable rotation. We led them over to the tack room and hung rifle scabbards from the saddles. Holstering the shotguns, we headed out to start the inventory of our available assets.

We started where the fence line broke and rode the line while I counted posts, Michelle was evaluating grazing grass and possible planting spots. Michelle took the lead and I trailed behind, Brin exploring around us as we went.

Michelle stopped and pulled her shotgun from the scabbard; Brin and I both instinctively froze in place. A moment later a large cotton tail broke from the tall grass racing towards the brush, Michelle's shotgun went off with a mighty roar and the cotton tail tumbled mid-leap and lay quivering on the ground. Lunch on the other hand panicked and broke, we were suddenly going the opposite direction at breakneck speed. The stallion was fast but apparently wasn't gun trained, and if I hadn't been resting my hands on the pommel I would have been thrown the moment he bolted.

It took me about a hundred yards to bring him under control and it may have been the tree line that did then and not me. I got him calmed and we started walking back to Michelle who had dismounted to collect her harvest. We would have to make sure all of the animals were fully gun trained; some target practice might be in order. We finished up our inspection and headed back to the camp.