Chapter 19

We made it all the way to where Woodville wasn't and instead of taking a left and heading south, like I'd planned at first, I turned right, sorta. What I actually did was a near U-turn heading back east basically but on the path that would be US-190 someday, maybe.

I know it's probably hard for modern day people to understand what things were like for Louise, Nancy, Helen, and me back then. The road we were on was completely unnatural even though every attempt seemed to have been made to make it appear normal. Natural pine forests do not have roads through them.

Piney woods aren't quite as dense as Bilbo Baggins claimed Mirkwood was but they aren't far from it. There are small clearings occasionally, but they aren't large and they aren't numerous. Take a good look at a pine tree sometime and notice the cones. Those cones are what make the seeds and only a cursory look will tell you that they make plenty. After they scatter every one of those seeds tries to become a new pine tree. If they're left to their own devices a hell of a lot of them will get the job done.

This really was the forest primeval. Evangeline might have wound up in Philadelphia but the Cajuns were scheduled for a date with south Louisiana and it wasn't sixty miles from where we were right now. We were here ahead of them.

We made our circuit and I turned back south on my path that ran where State Highway 92 might someday. After the drive today when I was calm enough to enjoy the fantastic beauty of the Big Thicket as it had been, I hoped that I'd be dead long before the highway got here.

I'm not saying that I think the old ways were the best ways. In my mind there was no comparison between flint tipped spears and even my Marlin. I did realize that inventions like firearms caused the natural beauty of the world to be depleted and war wasn't even the major problem in my view.

People were the problem. The inventions and discoveries helped keep more and more people alive and they kept more people coming. This ever increasing horde consumed the earth and most of what was on it. Humans conquered the earth and by my time they were using it completely up.

I'd never been a tree hugger while I was where I belonged and now it was easy to know why I hadn't been. The little bit of the natural world that was left by the time I arrived wasn't all that beautiful. Now that I was plopped right back into it though, I could see what mankind had lost, what it had used up.

Of course there was no fixing it. Times changed and people multiplied. After they multiplied enough some of them had to move on and spread out. The trouble was they devoured everything in their path, like army ants. They ate it, or cut it down, or paved it over, as if the concrete construction they were so fond of could ever be as wonderful as what they'd replaced with it.

It couldn't be though, but it didn't matter any more for the people I'd left, because it was gone. Forever. Sure, occasionally people, in the United States anyway, would make a noble gesture and set aside something to try and preserve it. It was a pitiful gesture though.

After taking a look at the Big Thicket National Preserve before my little detour, and now having the chance to see what it had really been like I could understand that man's works truly were filthy rags compared to the natural beauty he had found when he arrived.

These thoughts led me to others, about the space program at that. Was the space race just another attempt by man to spread the disease of his presence to another planet somewhere, so he could use it up too? What an odd thought for an East Texas redneck to have. And how did I get where I am now, and what for?

Was it just to show me what had happened before? For what purpose? I couldn't change a damned bit of it. Or was it to show me that there had been men at one time that understood how to live without using up the world. I didn't think that was it either, mostly because I didn't believe that crap at all.

The noble red savages hadn't preserved nature out of a moral imperative to save it for future generations. They just hadn't known about more efficient ways to kill. They turned to killing, raiding, raping, and drinking as soon as they got their hands on the tools.

I didn't have any more idea today than I had yesterday, or any day since I got here, why I was here, and I was beginning not to even care. I'd have pissed and moaned forever if I'd had any warning at all about what would happen on my camping trip. If I'd been given a choice I would have never chosen this for my life.

Now that I was here though, I would wail even louder if I thought I had to leave and stay gone. Of course I would jump at the chance to go back for another day, or even more, of shopping. Things would be that much better if I got a little warning ahead of time and could make some preparations.

Was I a hypocrite? Bemoaning the destruction of nature on one hand and hoping for a trip back to the retail horn of plenty on the other. Hell, I was worse than that. I wanted a shot at the wholesale horn of plenty. By now I didn't want to go back for a few shovels and ditch bank blades, I wanted a fucking backhoe with a front-end loader on the other end.

Ah, it's always nice to dream of what could be, especially when you're trying to improve on things that are already nearly perfect. I'd had a pretty damned good life where I was, even though my plans didn't always work out. There was that little divorce thing we probably shouldn't mention.

Not much fucking chance of that here and now though. Louise wasn't stingy with my dick, and if some other brave came sniffing around Louise, Helen, or Nancy - I could just shoot their red asses, leaving them dead noble red savages.

Yes siree, bob tailed mule. I'd fallen into a bucket of forest and come out with three beautiful young wives. Fuck a bunch a roses.

It was coming on sunset when we made it back to the trailer. Louise, Nancy, and Helen couldn't wait to get inside and fix their new man a meal. Hell, I couldn't wait to eat it. Just the same I had some plans for after supper, and no you dirty minded thing, they didn't involve ravishing my beautiful young women, not right away anyhow.

After I'd been stuffed full and the dishes had been done I led my three beauties back to the bedroom and introduced them to the magic of videotape. I idly wondered how they would take "Rocky" but didn't worry after I saw that they were spellbound by the opening credits. I left them watching and wished I had a few packages of microwave popcorn to really give them a treat.

At the kitchen table, I took out a spiral notebook, and started my wish list. I didn't really have any hopes that I'd ever get another chance at my old world and my remaining bank account balances, but a little fantasizing wouldn't hurt me, and there was always the chance that my benefactors would try to liven things up again.

I worked steadily at my list until the movie was over and the girls came to find me. They had millions of questions I'm sure but they knew they couldn't ask them yet. They had a plan though, and I didn't get any pussy or any sleep until I'd spent an hour helping them with their quest to learn English.

Brick duty was the first thing on the agenda the next morning. I don't know what caused this and it wasn't my decision. I'd have gladly stayed in for a little oatmeal if I'd had the choice. I didn't. Helen and Nancy pulled me outside as soon as we'd all taken our turn in the pisser.