Chapter 2

I sat at the table and fumed to myself lightly. How in the hell did I ever fuck up so badly! I sat there looking at the girls and decided that I needed to set some rules for them before we went any further. "Girls! We need to have a discussion about what you can and cannot do while you're living with me."

Both girls stopped their celebration and sat down looking at me, Linda rather passively and Shannon with an "I dare you" look. "Have either of you graduated high school?"

Shannon said, "I'm a junior this year."

Linda said, "Me to!"

"OK. You both need to finish high school. That's not up for discussion." Both girls gave me rebellious looks. "You can get a GED or regular diploma, I don't care, as long as you complete it."

Linda looked relieved, but Shannon still looked stubborn after I made that statement.

"You can date boys around your own age. That means no dates older than 20 for either of you until you graduate high school. You do your assignments and turn them in before you go out. I get to meet your prospective date before you get serious. No drugs, drinking, or parties on school nights, and no fighting unless you're forced into it. You dress and act appropriately for where ever you do go out. I know this sounds old-fashioned, but I have seen too much of what can happen to girls who don't follow these rules; and it's not pretty."

Shannon and Linda looked at me as if they were expecting me to continue. I didn't say anything and finally Shannon spoke up, "That's it?"

I looked at both of them, "I'm not your father. I think you're old enough that you should know the difference between right and wrong. If not, it's a little late for me to teach you." I got up and walked toward the cash register. "Coming?"

Both girls followed me out of the restaurant, whispering to each other the entire way. I had loaded the truck and was getting in when Linda spoke up, "Do you mean that we can do anything we want as long as we obey the things you told us?"

I looked at Linda, "Yep. As far as I'm concerned you're adults." This led to further whispering between Shannon and Linda. I kept glancing at them out of the corner of my eye trying to figure out if this would help me get out of the mess I had gotten into. I was hoping that they would decide to just take off somewhere before we got to my place.

Finally both girls looked at me. Shannon was the spokesman, "We accept. But we have some conditions for you. First, neither Linda nor I will have sex with you. Second, if we decide that we can't live by your rules we will be able to leave. Finally you need to give us enough money to buy clothes or other things we need."

"I won't give you anything, but you can earn some money", I answered. "I have no problem with the first two conditions but the third one needs to be negotiated." We argued back and forth about what I expected them to do and what they expected to get for doing it. It might sound like we were really fighting but it was a friendly fight, with as much laughter as serious discussion. It felt like I had gone back in time to when I was growing up. My sisters and I had arguments like this. Finally we agreed that they should get around 20 dollars a week most of the time. Extra chores would result in a larger allowance.

I stopped at Target and bought the girls a new tent, sleeping bags, cots and other necessities for camping. The only disagreement we had was about my choices for clothing. Here they appealed to a female employee and she sided with the girls on the clothes. It must be a damn female conspiracy to make men pay twice as much for the same thing! They bought Eddy Bauer shirts, Levi Strauss jeans, sports bras, and several items that cost at lest twice as much as I ever paid for my clothes. We were going to be camping to throw off any trail as well as save as much money as I could.

Neither girl had done much camping before, but surprisingly they both really liked it. I didn't mind camping but I did mind that Shannon was a morning person. I hate mornings! Too many years working the night shift I expect. Whenever I have to get up before ten o'clock I'm a grouch who barely manages to mumble until I've had my third cup of coffee. This didn't seem to bother either of the girls, who chattered at each other like blue jays. I treated them like blue jays too and just enjoyed the sounds without paying attention to what they were saying.

About the end of the week while I was sipping my third cup I heard Linda, "What do you think, Uncle David?" My "Huh" told them about how much attention I was paying. Linda gave me an annoyed look while Shannon just glowered, "I wanted to know if we should go to Las Vegas". Now I was totally lost. Why would we be going to Las Vegas?

"Were you listening to us at all?", Shannon asked.

'Not really. I don't hear anything before my third cup", I admitted.

Shannon explained, "Linda has a hacker friend who works in the school's main office. She has used the school's computer system to hack into the state computer system. If she asks, I'm sure she can send us our transcripts and a copy of our birth certificates as well. She told Linda that she could get her an order of emancipation any time she wanted one. These will be issued by the state of Kansas and are real records. If you want we could have a record showing that you adopted us too. We need to have an address and I was thinking that General Delivery Las Vegas to Shannon Morris would be a good way to go."

I thought a moment. "Call your friend and tell them to send your records to General Delivery Las Vegas. You need to write down the information about what happened to you so we can send it to the Federal Marshall as well. When we pick up the records we can send the information out at the same time." I needed to delay my arrival for at least another week before I arrived at my new home. Besides, I had never been to Las Vegas before and figured that it would be an interesting experience.

I had contracted for the delivery of a precut log house to be delivered to my property in two weeks and to have the foundation and the utilities put in so all I had to do was raise the walls and roof it. I thought I would have time to finish the inside over the winter since I was going to be alone. I had figured that I could get it fixed up enough to be livable by early November without any problems. I called to order a larger one. I had ordered the one bedroom model and now I was going to need at least three bedrooms. It raised the price by twelve thousand dollars. I was glad I had already paid for the first one or I don't think they would have changed the order on such short notice.

For the next week we traveled slowly through Utah getting acquainted with each other and visiting the various tourist sites. We enjoyed ourselves except for the times when the girls revisited their experiences while writing them down. I found that there had been four girls who had been sent to the new home, all of them around 16 or 17. Linda especially was upset when she talked about the others. I don't know what I would have done if I had known about them earlier. We spent two days at the Grand Canyon riding a mule down to the bottom and then riding it back up again.

I spent much of the time on our trip down the canyon speaking to Linda about her survivors guilt, "What would have happened if you had tried to get them out?"

"They would have caught us."

"Would that have helped them?"

"No."

We continued talking and she finally started to accept that nothing she could have done would have helped the others. She hadn't really known the other girls but still felt guilty that she had escaped.

I began to enjoy having them around. They reminded me of when my family came together before my parents died. We talked and bickered amicably about almost everything, from politics to the food we were making for dinner. By the end of the week we had arrived at Las Vegas and I was feeling positively avuncular.