Chapter 29

As Captain Madison made the first of the switchbacks, he glanced over at Kathy, whose eyes were locked on the driveway ahead, studiously avoiding the "view." "So, tell me, you don't ever glance down as we take off? Particularly when you were going for your first license in the smaller aircraft, you could have had a heck of a view as you left the runway in the slower planes."

"I do not look down when we take off. I have plenty to do," she said, although her lips fought to grin back at him. "And before you ask, it doesn't seem to bother me when we're landing. I guess I'm too busy concentrating on making it a good landing. But I don't want to look at the ground when we take off. After a few thousand feet, the sensation goes away."

"And the driveway?" Madison said, glancing off into the abyss.

"... Is just fine unless I look down into that..."

"I'm just teasing you, and I guess I shouldn't. But look at the side of this drive. Those steel barriers on the side would stop a tank. I don't think you could run a car off this thing if you tried. Jeff said that the only thing that couldn't come up it was an eighteen-wheeler, because it couldn't make the switchbacks. But the drive is wide, and sloped toward the inside, so even with ice, you would just run into that little ditch against the inside wall."

"It doesn't have to make sense, Bill. It just is. I don't like heights. And I know that sounds ridiculous for a pilot, but I will never like this driveway."

"How about Pikes Peak? We went up there once when we had a layover. I don't remember you saying anything then."

"That's because I was scared speechless. Then, as we were leaving, we were stopped about halfway down for the brake check? The attendant pointed that instrument at our front wheels and told us to wait a while for the brakes to cool before continuing. You could see the heat shimmering from the brakes, even with you putting the transmission in second to help hold back all the way. When I saw those red-hot brakes, they really got my attention. I am never going up that road again."

"Well, I'm not going to tell you what my phobia is."

"Oh, yes you are," she said sitting up, a devilish grin on her face. "Now what is it... ?"

The miles rolled away as they enjoyed their trip, and each other.

Margaret and Frank walked into the living room a little later to find all Jeff's women ready. "Oops," Margaret said, "Let us run get our equipment, and we'll be right back."

When Fred strolled in, cup of coffee in hand, he asked, "What are you going to teach them today?"

"Well, I thought we would start working on a couple of the states' minimum standards courses. Of course, we're going to shoot the courses very slowly. But how about shooting with us?"

Fred thought for a minute. "A little refresher wouldn't hurt the old man," he grinned. "Let me see if I can dig my gunbelt out, and I'll be back in a little while."

As Fred started to walk out of the living room, Jeff said, "If you can't find it, you can always use one of our spares."

Fred stopped and grinned at him. "Then I'd have to use one of your Glocks," he laughed. "I'll find my gunbelt and duty holster, and be right back. You know damn well, I want to shoot my Sig," he said hurrying out the door.

"Is his Sig better than a Glock?" Melissa asked her husband when Fred had left.

"Well, we've touched on this subject before," Jeff said, looking over at her. "That, or a variation of it has been asked, and argued for years. The Glock is simple to shoot, and gets the job done. After you've all become as proficient as I want you to be, you can experiment and pick the weapon you want. But that Glock, — some think it is ugly — is extremely reliable, however. His Sig is arguably more pleasing to the eye. It might even shoot a little tighter group right out of the box without being tuned. But like I said before, when you drop a Glock on concrete, you go 'oops.' When you drop a Sig or most any other high-end all metal pistol on concrete, you go 'ah shit.'"

Jeff paused a moment, then continued, "When all of you are up to speed, and we've tried a number of other weapons, you'll understand more about what I mean. But roughly, the ugly Glock will bounce, and the pretty, complicated metal weapons break, or bend something a little easier."

"Then why do you use your Colt 1911 A-1?" Melissa asked, reasonably.

Jeff just grinned at her and refused to answer.

Diana smiled at her husband. "Bet him a blowjob that he can't shoot the center out of the target from the twenty-five with your Glock," Diana said.

"So, if he shoots the center out, then I lose and have to give him a blowjob. Is that supposed to be punishment?" Melissa asked, grinning.

"No, but it will get the man I love an extra blowjob," Diana said.

"Hah," Melissa laughed. "All he has to do to get that is to unzip his pants. Then again, I'll do that for him, too."

Fred walked in, obviously having heard Melissa, with Frank and Margaret right behind him. "Oh, my old ears may never be the same again," he teased.

Melissa blushed crimson, and Fred chuckled.

Jeff got up. "Well, if everyone is ready, lets head for the range," he said, laughing. He held out a hand to help his young wife out of her seat. "I'll take you up on that at lunch break," he said, chuckling with Fred.

Melissa stuck her tongue out at him and took off to catch up with the other girls who were waiting for her at the door, all of them giggling.

Diana rolled her eyes, took her husband by the arm and followed the rest.

After getting ammunition and targets, they met on the twenty-five. Jeff, of course, had everyone step up to the line and check to make sure their weapons were empty.

As they gathered around, he said, "Everyone has progressed much faster than I anticipated. You should all congratulate yourselves on how quickly you have done this."

Ann held up her hands, palms toward Jeff. "Is that why my blisters have turned to calluses?" she teased, showing the callous from manually pulling the slide back with her left hand when they were dry firing and also on the dummy rounds when they were shooting ball and dummy, plus a small callous on her trigger finger.

"I guess it sure shows that you've done it a lot," Jeff returned, "but seriously, you have done well. It's time to up the ante again. As I mentioned inside, we're going to start working on a couple of states' minimum standards courses. The reason for more than one — before you ask — is simply, variation. Most are good, but there are a few exceptions that I believe focus too much on very close shooting. The 'reasoning' behind that, so I'm told, is that most police handgun fights are within about fifteen feet (5 yard line). But the key there, to me, is the word, most."

He looked around at his students, "I'm not going to decide ahead of time what distance a potential gunfight is going to be, and practice only for that. We've used both one and two hand grips, but mostly stayed with the Weaver stance. Eventually we'll practice other stances. A 'modern isosceles, ' crouch, point shooting, and more. What I've shown you works fine on the range and in low stress conditions. Unfortunately statistics have shown that the Weaver stance, as well as most of the others, when the officer is confronted by a sudden, close threat, is difficult to assume. And officers that have shot well on the range have frequently performed poorly in a gunfight."

He waited a moment for that to sink in. "I'll show you a video on the net when we get back inside that shows a gunfight between an officer and two assailants, taken from the car camera. The officer has a perfect two-handed stance. He missed repeatedly when firing at an assailant only about fifteen feet away. The assailant hit, using a sort of crouching point shoot position, and very little training — none professionally. The officer survived only because of his vest.

"Doctors have told us for years that our fine motor skills, our near focus, and other things leave us when our heart rate goes to the one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and forty-five category, or above — exactly where it is in a gunfight. And don't forget auditory exclusion. Officers have been fired on from close range and never even heard the gunshots from their second assailant, due to audio exclusion, let alone saw him, because of their tunnel vision."

The tone of Jeff's voice deepened as he stressed his words. "In other words, we can't manipulate our weapon well, we can't reload it worth a crap, and we can't even see our sights, let alone line them up, and may not even hear it when another assailant starts firing at us, or even see him. Yet, most police departments continue to teach, line up the sights, front sight equally centered in the rear sights, and top of front sight level with the top of the rear. Exactly what I've taught you on the range so far. If you could, somehow, remain cool, calm and collected during that gunfight, then all of the above would work beautifully..."

Arlene knew her husband wanted someone to ask, so she did. "But Dad, why did you teach us all of that if it won't work when we need it most?"

Grinning at her, realizing that she probably already knew, he said, "Because, we've got to start somewhere. But we're not going to stop here. We'll learn many stances, and work on those that work best for you. And we'll get your heart rate up so you can practice with it above one hundred and fifteen. You will be amazed what a couple of hard laps around the field before you run the course will do to your score," he chuckled. "When you crawl through that twenty feet of cardboard tunnel, or duck walk, if that works better for you, then run to cover before the target turns — hoping to get to cover before the target turns, anyway — then work through the rest of the obstacle course, you will begin to realize what some of the things I've mentioned really are."

Stopping for a moment, he stared at his feet for a second, almost embarrassed, "We're fortunate. We have a range to be used by us as much as we want. We don't have to share it the way a police officer would that was trying to enhance his or her training. We have enough money to buy all the ammunition we need, and many other things. If none of you ever have to pick up a gun in defense, I'll be tickled. But you're going to be trained as well as I can train you. If anything happens, I'll know that my love ones have the best chance to survive that I can give them."

"Do you really believe that something is going to happen, Dad?"

Jeff's face set, and he didn't answer.

Diana and Arlene met each other's eyes. "Oh, shit," both daughter and mother quietly said in unison.

When some of the other wives looked at her, Diana said, "I'll tell you later."

"Okay," Jeff said, ignoring the women's comments, "Lets go back to the fifty and we'll walk through the course with a dry fire."

Margaret took a step and stopped. "Fifty?" she repeated.

Jeff grinned at her, but talking to all of them, he said, "Don't panic. The first thing the course requires is to 'move' from the fifty to the twenty-five. I guess they wrote it out like that instead of saying 'run' or 'jog' so if someone stumped their toe, they couldn't sue the city, or the minimum standards people. What they mean is to jog from the fifty to the twenty-five to get your heart rate up a little. Of course, unless you're just about eligible for a bypass, it isn't going to stress you much," he joked.

Back at the fifty, "Okay, pick your shooting station, make sure your weapon is secure in your holster, and on my command we'll jog, together to the twenty-five. When we reach there, you will assume your station on the firing line, draw your weapon and commence firing. Fire six rounds right hand barricade, change magazines, kneel, fire six rounds kneeling right hand barricade. Then change magazines again, shift to the left side of the barricade, weapon in your left hand, supported by your right, and fire six rounds left hand barricade. The mandatory magazine changes are to get you more accustomed to changing magazines under stress. Right now, it doesn't seem like stress, but when we go live — it will. And of course, although I've said right or left hand, we'll be using our two-handed grip that I've taught you all through this. The right or left just means the primary hand holding the weapon."

They all jogged down together and the fun began. Even with only dry fire, two of them dropped their magazines as they started to "reload."

When they were done, and had their weapons secured in their holsters, Jeff had them gather around again. "I didn't even say anything about a time — just let you work your way through the course. Of course, with having to rack the slide by hand, you can't really put a time on it. However, once we go to live fire, I'll institute the time restriction."

"What is it?" Frank said.

"One minute for the twenty-five yard line stage, and the time starts at the fifty," Jeff calmly said.

A couple of the women gasped quietly and looked at each other.

"One minute for eighteen rounds from the twenty-five with three different positions, and two magazine changes, plus having to jog from the fifty to the twenty-five?" Ann asked, incredulously.

"Yeah. Piece of cake," Jeff answered, deliberately misinterpreting, and barely keeping the grin off his face.

Fred started laughing. "Hey, you have a hundred pounds less to carry than I do," he joked. "You'll be shooting before my fat butt is halfway to the twenty-five," he lied.

"I think I've just failed," Ann sighed.

"You," Melissa whined, turning to Ann. "You shoot rings around Jen and me. If you think you can't do it, we don't have a chance."

"Whoa, whoa," Jeff said, putting his hands up slightly. "Why am I hearing straight 'A' students admitting defeat before they have even tried. And remember, on the B-27 target it's either a hit or a miss. Anything inside the seven ring counts two points. Anything outside counts nothing. Fifty rounds fired at two points each is a hundred. Most police departments consider a seventy passing — with you, it will be a ninety," he said deadpan. When the complaints from the girls, and the laughter from Diana toned down a little, he continued, "Basically, all you have to do is hit the chest of a man-sized target with every round to score a hundred. Now, you have shot from this stage before. You know you can do it. Why has a little thing like a stopwatch gotten everyone upset?

"Remember; a cop might have to do this stuff in a gunfight with a heart rate of one hundred and sixty, with his or her life depending on it. We're just shooting a piece of paper. Also, remember when you first started, I made a remark one time saying about a week from then you would think what you were doing at the start was baby shit. I'll say it again. A week from now — if our good weather continues to hold — you'll look back and laugh at what you've just said and felt. I've seen a firearms instructor shoot this course with a revolver, which is a lot slower to reload, generally. This guy could reload in five seconds without breaking a sweat. Anyway, he shot it with a revolver — held upside down — and shot a one hundred with a group no bigger than your fist."

"Shit," a female voice quietly said. Jeff thought it was Margaret, but wasn't sure.

He went on, "Now the next stage is to jog from the twenty-five to the fifteen yard line, draw your weapon and fire two rounds on the target. Elapsed time — six seconds." That got their attention.

And it went on, with an hour break for lunch. Late in the day, they had live-fired the course six times, in addition to going back to basics to overcome bad habits that were creeping in.

As they gathered back at the fifty, "How many rounds have we fired?" Jeff asked, knowing perfectly well, but getting a point across.

A tired Margaret squatted by her shooting tray counting empty boxes. "Three hundred rounds on the six courses, plus another fifty working on basics."

Jeff grinned at her. "Remember when we spent hours and only fired slightly less than a box?" he asked. "We'll maintain this pace for a few more days, then speed up again."

There were groans. "Is anybody tired?" he called out.

There was a rough chorus of "Yes."

"Good. Let's pick up our brass, stop by the garage and clean our weapons, and then we'll be done for the day," he brightly said.

There were more groans, but shortly there was laughter as good mood enveloped them. All knew that they were now able to do something that they could not have dreamed of a week ago, and that they had worked hard to accomplish it.

Fred grinned at Jeff, tapped him lightly on the shoulder and said, "Well done."

Jeff took the complement from his mentor with pride. "Thanks Fred," he quietly said, "but I should have told them the firearms instructor was you."

"Bullshit," Fred said, walking toward the garage.

Knowing he had pushed the women hard, Jeff demanded to be allowed to help with dinner preparations, first trying to get Diana to just have hamburgers.

As they stood talking in the kitchen, Diana turned to her husband, putting both hands on the back of his neck, smiling up at him. "Everybody is tired; they need a good meal. We've had hamburgers and hotdogs or some other variation of quick food far too many times lately. We appreciate you offering to help, but we're going to have a good meal."

Jeff looked around at the other women as they smiled at him. "Fine, then give me something to do. It isn't right for us guys to sit on our butts when you have to come in and work for another hour to fix dinner. And don't tell me you can do it faster without me. If my wives can learn to shoot, then I can learn to, at least, help a little with the cooking."

Diana glared at him for a second, then her face softened. She kissed him hard, then let him go. "In the pantry, get a sack of potatoes; wash them in that sink," she said pointing, "Peel them, wash them again, and put them in that big colander in the sink."

As she turned around, she almost ran into Fred and Frank who were lined up quietly standing behind her waiting for their duties, trying to look humble, but fighting grins. "That grin might just be changing into tears, Frank," she said, motioning to a pile of onions on the sink counter. "Peeled and chopped. Arlene will show you. Fred, you can set the table, Jennie will show you where everything is."

As Diana walked by, Laura whispered to her, "Is he afraid he won't get any pussy tonight because he pushed us so hard on the range today?"

Diana chuckled and leaned over to whisper into her best-friend-sister-wife's ear. "I would hate to try and enforce something like that. The chance of that happening is as near zero as it can get, especially with those four girls rubbing up against him every chance they've had all day. Not to say anything about us," she giggled. "Heck, every time he bent over with those tight jeans on, I wanted to grab his ass, and I've been married to him seventeen years.

"The healer making my body that of a nineteen-year-old must be what it is. Just watching him sitting there fumbling with those potatoes makes me want to stick a titty in his mouth. Not to say anything about not getting to use the breast pump today and my breasts feeling like they're going to burst."

"Well, I don't have any milk in mine, and I'm thinking about the same thing," Laura laughed, then capped her hand over her mouth as Jeff looked around, a questioning look on his face.

Laura and Diana hugged each other, then went about their business, smiling.

Before Jeff finished, Melissa and Jennie sat down with him to help. Although he had seen more than one of his wives peeling potatoes at the same time, he still felt that he wasn't carrying his weight, vowing to do this more often until he could be of some real help in the kitchen. He concentrated on his potato peeling, occasionally looking at his two young wives as they each peeled three potatoes to his one. How do they do that? he though as he slammed the peeler into his thumb in his haste to keep up. Well, shit.

He had mentioned hiring a cook, but so far, Diana had nixed the idea, saying she had rather have her privacy than have someone cook for them. She also said she didn't want the girls to fall into the lazy rich kids category, and that sharing cooking and cleaning duties with each other also helped to establish a firmer bond between the sister-wives, not to mention establishing the habit of responsibilities.

As they sat down to eat, Frank's eyes were a little red. Trying to kid him, Fred said, "Hey Frank, what's with the red eyes? I thought I was the only one around doing that."

There was quiet for a moment. Frank knew that Fred was trying to make light of his crying for his wife, but Frank was afraid to respond. After a moment he said, "I don't see how the women mess with those onions without crying. Those things got to me."

"Who says we don't?" Laura answered. "We take turns with them. Sometimes they bother us; sometimes they don't. And we can't get Vidalia onions out here like we could in Georgia. They're a sweet onion that won't grow sweet anywhere else in the country, and they also don't bother your eyes."

After the blessing and the food being passed around, Fred lost track of the conversation going on around him, thinking of Brenda. We would be on our way to Florida by now in that new rig. Why couldn't it have been me? Of course, if Jeff hadn't pushed me, subtle though he was, I would have fired my Sig one more final time that night in the motel room. How am I ever going to live without her? Tears sprang to his eyes. He blinked and looked down, pretending to be busy eating so that no one would notice.

A look passed between the women, their empathy having picked up on Fred's feelings. Diana caught her husband's eye, then glanced at Fred, but Jeff just nodded, having already noticed.

Jeff looked at his friend. Shit, what can I do? I've tried to keep him busy. He's drawn up plans, given me a list of the weapons he would like to have for the fortress, then listed what we could legally have. I wonder if I can make some kind of deal with the general? Sounds hopeless, but I've got a couple of attaboys for the healers, not to say anything about the ship. Military weapons for civilian use won't fly, but every time he needs me, he claims I'm not a civilian. Maybe a stronghold for a general to run to if the shit hits the fan might be something I could, at least, make him think about.

When Evie and Dave had been paged for supper, they had told Laura to go ahead without them, that they would be there in a few minutes. As they walked through the door, Diana said, "I was just about to come get you guys. We missed you."

"Yeah," Arlene popped up. "You missed seeing Dad peeling potatoes, and Mr. Wainwright peeling onions — we should have had a camera," she finished winking at Frank.

"Oh, my gosh," Evie said, as her husband pulled her chair out for her. She smiled at him as she sat down, then continued, "Is it safe to eat? I mean, Jeff in the kitchen..."

"Well, it wasn't quite that traumatic, and, of course, they wouldn't let me near the stove, so you should be safe," Jeff chuckled.

Dave sat down next to his wife, and food was started their way. "Boss, be careful now. You might be setting a bad example. I mean, first you're peeling potatoes, then who knows? It could get out of hand..."

"Alright, alright, you've razzed my rear enough," he said, laughing. "Everybody here knows that the height of my cooking abilities is turning on the coffee maker."

"Well, a man's got to know his limitations," Fred said, trying to imitate Clint Eastwood. Starting to reach for the butter for his bread, he had second thoughts, knowing he had to lose some weight.

The bantering and teasing continued. Later, Evie said, "I thought you would come to check on us. After all, you've spent a lot of money on that waterfall."

Jeff liberally buttered another piece of Diana's cornbread. Not cornbread like you would get in a restaurant, but soft, moist cornbread that was still so hot that the butter melted easily, and with a taste that was almost sweet. Glancing at Evie as he accepted the bowl of navy beans to replenish the supply on his plate, he said, "We had a pretty tough day on the range, and besides, I doubted that you would like me looking over your shoulder while you worked on something you hadn't set up before."

Evie held her glass as her husband poured her tea. "You're right about that," she said smiling. "But the people they sent out Friday were sharp, and even though I told them we could get the rest of it together without them, two of them came back today. It was like a big jigsaw puzzle. But they showed us the tricks and helped us lay it out. We've got it together. We just need some more steel work to get it installed right, then run the wiring and do a little more piping. They made sure to show us the additions you requested — and I'll bet that ran the bill up some," she laughed. "They left about noon, but the rest we can do ourselves. A few more hours to get the falls installed, then it's just building the range.

"We've got some temporary extra ventilation going. In the next couple of days we'll have the range ventilation installed and operating. We're going to curtain the whole area off, bring fresh air in, pull it through the work area, then vent it to the outside. You shouldn't even smell anything up here, even with all the welding we're going to do."

Fred eyed Jeff's replenished plate of navy beans, creamed potatoes with gravy, turnip greens with hot pepper sauce, another breast of southern fried chicken, and... his third piece of cornbread. "Jeff if I ate half as much as you, in a month, I couldn't walk through that door," he said motioning.

As everyone turned to Jeff, he looked up with an almost deer-in-the-headlights expression, his fork-full of creamed potatoes on its way to his mouth. Helen, coming to his defense, said "If he didn't run that half-marathon every morning — well, more actually — and he didn't have seven wives, he might gain weight, too," she finished, her face instantly turning a bright red as she realized what she had said.

As they all laughed, Dave teased his hand higher on the inside of Evie's thigh. Oh, crap, she thought as his hand inched farther. If I reach down to grab his hand, everyone will know what he's doing, and if I don't, my nipples are going to pop and everyone will know I'm getting excited. Dave and I have already figured out that Jeff is servicing all his women every night. They don't take turns. At first, I couldn't understand how he could do it, but with the way Dave has been going at me lately, I'm beginning to. He keeps me sore, and that's with me telling him no so much of the time. That darn healer is worth more than a whole trainload of Viagra. But there's just me. Crap, he's gone to sleep with a hardon almost every night, no matter what I do. And there are all these women around him that just exude sex.

Her husband's hand had long since reached her pussy. Now he was drawing diagrams around her clit with the tip of his finger. She leaned over and whispered in his ear. "If you don't stop, I'm going to have an orgasm right here at this table."

"And that's a bad thing?" Dave quietly said, then grinning moved his hand back.

Evie noticed that both Diana and Arlene's nipples were showing through their tops, even while wearing a bra. Do they know? Evie ask herself. Fighting a shutter, she took a drink of tea and tried to concentrate on what Jeff was saying.

"I saw you walking around with the architect and his people," Jeff said, glancing at Dave.

"I thought you would come over when we got close to the range," Dave said as he piled beans on his plate.

"Nope," Jeff said pouring a second glass of tea for himself, then passing the pitcher around. "I want them to know whom they report to. That way, if they don't like what you tell them, they won't be thinking they can go over your head."

"Thanks, Jeff. I appreciate that. Oh, I kinda took over the suite nearest the back door. If you don't mind, I'll..."

Jeff waved a hand. "Forgot to suggest you set something like that up. Get you some office furniture delivered. Just store the bedroom furniture and whatever else in the basement in the corner where we've stored our extra stuff."

"We've got office furniture that we can..."

Jeff looked up, "No. This isn't going to go away tomorrow, or next month. Fit that office out in furniture that will reflect your position. I don't want you looking like the hired help. If buying yourself nice furniture goes a little too much against the grain, I'll let Diana do it for you. Guaranteed she'll spend more money. If I come down there and it isn't nice enough, I'll send it back and buy you some real furniture." Taking another bite of chicken, he grinned at Dave.