Chapter 628

The Prison Planet

Morales, on the tractor, eased down the road he had made toward the fields with the women following on the crawler. After fording the creek, the big tractor rolled onto the first field and stopped. “Ah, shit, I was afraid of that,” Morales groused as he shut the engine down.

The crawler pulled up beside him, and Jasmine killed its engine. Happy, the wolves got off and immediately spread out to begin searching for danger, but the women just sat there for a couple of minutes before gathering their hoes and baskets and walking over to where Morales was now standing.

“Looks as if we should have checked on the garden instead of spending the last three days working on our bathroom,” Morales quietly said as he stood looking at the carpet of grass and weeds now adorning the long rows.

A week ago, using the cultivator attachment, Morales had plowed the garden while getting as near the plants as he dared, but much had been left to do with hoes and their hands. There had been two rains and a week of the garden standing idle for the weeds and grass to grow – and the weeds seemed to grow much faster than the garden plants.

“Well,” Jasmine said, “it looks as if our nursing our tomato plants by taking them out in the day and bringing them back into the cave at night to keep them out of the cold has worked. They have only been in the garden a few weeks, and despite the plants being fairly small yet, they are healthy and have a good many ripe tomatoes on them already. And with those long rows ... Just as we expected, the peas and beans have a way to go as well as the cucumbers and squash – generally the same for the rest of the other garden plants. It won’t be long, though, before we should have a tremendous amount of canning to do.”

“The cucumbers, squash and okra are certainly growing too, but so are the weeds,” Christine said with a sick-sounding chuckle.

“I wear gloves to keep down the itching when I pick okra,” Jasmine called out, “especially when the plants and their leaves get big.”

“I have a lot to learn about gardening, but I love fresh vegetables,” Ashley inserted.

“Remember to keep your rifles nearby,” Morales cautioned. After walking over to where the wolves were, he knelt beside them. Smiling, he put an arm around each neck and quietly said, “Okay, same as the last time we were here. We need you two to pay close attention because we’ll be busy and might not be as aware of our surroundings as much as we should be. Can you take care of us again today?”

Both animals whined and licked his face.

“Lila, do you want that giant boulder again?” he asked. When she nodded her head much as any human would, he turned to Lobo. “Are you going to walk the perimeter for us again?”

Lobo grinned at him.

“I’ll have my rifle with me while I’m on the tractor, but we need all the warning time we can get, so be sure to let us know even if you only scent something. Okay?”

Both enhanced wolves acted as if they understood the man, which they basically did. Lila bounded across the field and scrambled atop the boulder to perch ten feet above the field while Lobo trotted to the nearest edge and began a slow circuit of the first field where the major part of their garden was located.

When Morales came back to his wives, Ashley turned to him. “I’ve watched you and Jasmine do that several times, and it still amazes me. Both of you talk to Lobo and Lila as if they are human, and they do what you tell them to.”

“So, have you tried talking to them the way I just did?” Morales asked.

Christine and Ashley looked at each other before Ashley answered. “Uh, not really. Several times, I have asked Lila to go with me when I went outside to get things...”

“And?”

“Uh, she goes with me, but I’m not sure if she understands or just goes because I ask her.”

Jasmine smiled at her sister-wives. “I think that both of you are still just a tiny bit afraid of the wolves. I suggest that sometimes when we’re sitting around before bedtime, that both of you go and sit close to them and talk directly to them.”

“About what?” Christine asked.

“Anything. Just tell them about your day, or mention that you’re tired – anything. Sit with them and show them you’re their friends and that you like them. As I mentioned, I’m almost certain that they’re ... telepathic, at least to some extent. Morales and I have tried it without speaking aloud, and they still do what we ask. Jeff said that it might be that they can feel our emotions or maybe even get a mental picture of what we’re trying to tell them.”

Jasmine shrugged as she continued. “I suppose that Morales and I don’t think of them as animals anymore. They’re just part of the family. Since they can’t speak, it’s hard to tell just how intelligent they are, but they pick up on subtle things.”

“I’ll give it a try,” Ashley returned.

“Me, too,” Christine said.

The women had decided to pick what ripe tomatoes there were before beginning the long process of weeding the garden. Morales spent the first fifteen minutes or so adjusting his plows before making a pass through their potato rows, then went to the other field to plow the corn. Since the garden plants had grown, the tomatoes, cucumbers and squash couldn’t be worked with the tractor without damaging the garden plants, so they would have to hoe or pull the weeds by hand, but the ground was loose and soft, absolutely perfect as far as Jasmine was concerned.

Three hours later, they were sitting under a tree at the edge of the field while eating a snack. “I think we overdid it,” Jasmine said with a chuckle. “The tomatoes are just starting to bear; even so, I have three full baskets already. By day after tomorrow, there will be that many and maybe more. And we’re going to have to stake them soon.

“We always used cages in our garden at home, but we can make do with stakes and twine. Three stakes spaced around each plant and driven into the ground, with a latticework of that grass twine Jeff brought will help support the plants’ limbs and will allow us a better yield because fewer of the tomatoes will touch the ground and develop a rotten place on them. Also, the plants stand a better chance of not being blown down during a strong wind.”

Jasmine let out a chuckle. “I can’t wait to get home and have a fresh tomato sandwich. If those tomatoes,” she said motioning to the nearby baskets, “taste as good as they look – and I know they do because I’ve eaten one already – they’ll make some great sandwiches. And if we manage to can them, we’ll have them to cook with during the winter,” she added.

“Preserving tomatoes for cooking is easy – well, the process isn’t complicated, anyway, but it involves a lot of work. We might be a little later to bed tonight if Diana brings our supplies today.”

“What about the squash? Can’t they be canned, too?” Christine asked.

But Jasmine was shaking her head. “I don’t think so, at least not summer squash. They would have to be pressure canned, and if I remember correctly, they just turn to mush with the high heat and pressure. I don’t think they can be kept in a root cellar, either.”

Christine stood looking at the cucumber vines that had already spread out and prevented Morales from using the cultivator attachment to plow out the weeds. Unless something happens, there will be a lot of cucumbers the next time we’re here.”

“There are some tiny squash on some of the plants. I hope we have lots of them, because I love squash,” Ashley broke in to say. “I just wish there were some way to preserve them. If we can’t, we are going to lose a lot of good eating.”

“They’re just like the cucumbers. They grow extremely fast,” Jasmine inserted. “It won’t be long before we should have all we can eat. But... maybe we can talk Jeff and Diana out of another bigger stasis chamber to store the squash in,” she said, nodding to the plants Christine was referring to.

“Because of how quickly the squash and cucumbers grow, we’ll probably have to pick every day, instead of every other day as we planned.” She looked about her. “My aunt would have had an orgasm with a garden like this. The soil is fertile, the weather is perfect, and we planted wayyy too much area. I just hope Diana returns with our canning supplies soon. It would be a shame for all this to ruin,” she said as she motioned to the three baskets of tomatoes nearby.

“When did she say they would be back?” Morales asked as he wiped a sweaty forehead.

“Today, but I know they’re busy. Hopefully, even with the aliens, Diana will have time to pick up our canning supplies. She said there was a place in Winter Park that had a full line, and she hoped she could get most of what we need from them.

“She also said her mother and father used to have a garden, and the two of them had canned a lot.” With a chuckle, Jasmine went on, “Diana told us about Jeff deciding he would not chance her being snatched up by some guy with money, so he got a date with her and deliberately knocked her up when she was only fourteen. Although Diana’s mother and father were ready to kill Jeff, they finally consented to signing for them to be married. She has some canning experience from helping her mother, but she had to take care of a baby, plus going to school, so she spent little time canning.”

“Well, if the Matthews don’t show up with the equipment, we’re going to have to throw away tomatoes in a few days. Of course, there are some vegetables that we can store in my ‘root cellar’ the way I did last year. But ... we can’t store tomatoes there. It sure worked for my potatoes and a couple of other things that we wound up eating during the winter, though. We’re still eating potatoes that I saved, and they are as good as the day I stored them.”

“Diana will be here,” Jasmine insisted. “She won’t let us down.”

With Morales’ plowing what he could, and the four of them working, they had most of the garden clear of weeds and looking good by late afternoon. As they were finishing loading their tomatoes and tools onto the crawler, they were suddenly in a deep shadow. The wolves sat to look up with grins on their faces as Ship hovered above the field.

In moments, Jeff, Diana, Arlene, Tosha, Aiko, Kayla and Selina were suddenly on the ground where the hugging began.

“Looks as if we’re just in time,” Diana said with a smile. “As soon as the store made its delivery, we loaded everything in Ship and were on our way. The hardware store owner said he had everything I asked for, and I had told him to add whatever he thought you would need that I hadn’t put on the list. From the looks of it, he may have overdone it, but he said he would take back anything we didn’t want.”

Jeff chuckled as he added, “We have bought things from him before and he told me he had been in business for many years. I have a feeling he probably added quite a bit to Diana’s order, but he’s so nice, you can’t be mad at him.”

“He’s a nice guy, and he doesn’t cheat me,” Diana defended. “He has always had practically everything I ordered, and if he didn’t have something, he would send it to me in the next day or two – no matter what I wanted. His store is amazing. If it’s in the hardware line and he doesn’t have it, I’d be astonished. The business is stacked floor-to-ceiling with merchandise, and the place is big. Also, he has a big fenced-in yard with heavier equipment and several other buildings where he stores things. I suppose you could call it an old-style hardware store, but he has many things that I wouldn’t have thought a hardware store would have, and I’d bet he knows exactly what he has and where every item is.

“I sent him the list by e-mail, and he called me right back. Didn’t I want spare gaskets for the canners? What about half-pint jars for certain types of jelly, such as pepper jelly, where you might just use a small amount of the jelly? Also, he had some decorative canning jars with a handle on the side that would make unusual coffee or tea mugs. He also has some tiny jars for specialty items.”

Jeff was sniggering when Diana caught him. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not so, or if it is, I don’t care. If the guy is the world’s best salesman, I still like him, because I like his ideas. He reminds me of things that I should have ordered, but he doesn’t push. If I say I don’t need it, he just says something like, ‘Certainly,’ and goes on with the conversation. There were several things he prompted me about, and if not for his prompting, we would have had to make another trip when we realized we needed it.”

Jeff shrugged. “The guy has found his niche, and I’ll admit he’s damn good at his job. I didn’t say there was anything wrong with what he did. And ... I will agree that for the things I’ve bought from him, his prices are competitive, although sometimes a bit higher than the big box stores, but a trip all the way to Denver would wipe out any possible savings there,” Jeff said, but he did wink at Morales where the women didn’t see.