Chapter 10

Day Ten: Tuesday

I woke up feeling like I had slept late but was surprised when I saw seven o'clock on the bedside clock. Groggy as I was I knew I needed to get started on all the work that I had planned for the day. I awoke my still slumbering brides so we could walk out to breakfast together. Hopefully Jim would be awake and I could find out if he knew the other 'Agents of the Antichrist'. Knowing Kari was a sound sleeper I awakened her first by teasing her nipples and kissing her neck. When I was sure she was awake and wanting more I moved on to Irene and then Julie, repeating the process until I was sure they were awake.

As soon as they discovered I was only trying to wake them, I retreated under a barrage of most unladylike words punctuated with Kari's pillow. I did manage to get to the bathroom first and began pumping last evening's coffee into the toilet when I felt a slap across the bottom as Kari moved in behind me. She mumbled, "That was mean." Then she wrapped her arms around me to take the sting from the words and the warmth of her naked body against my back started me thinking of returning to bed.

I grabbed her hand and pulled her into the shower with me and lathered and washed her to try to make up for my earlier transgressions. She returned the favor and after rinsing we were in the middle of a passionate kiss when Julie pulled back the shower curtain and remarked; "Now I can see why the mirror is so steamed up." Kari stuck out her tongue and I did the same as we both grabbed towels and exited the shower I thought about the clean towel as I dried off realizing that it was one of many details that someone else took care of that helped make my life pleasant. I vowed to find out who was responsible for doing our laundry and properly thank her.

Julie put a plate of day-old muffins into the microwave to warm as I poured and drank my first cup of coffee of the day. I basked in the love expressed in the friendly banter between my three wives. Before we could move our breakfast outside I heard a knock at the door. Jim was there holding a subdued Jenn snuggled against his chest. Suddenly Jerry ran past me to Kari's waiting arms. He smiled and gave her a good morning hug and kiss. Kari had a new admirer. I tried to lure Jenn into my arms with a muffin but she just clung more tightly to Jim. Jim explained that Jenn had woken up several times during the night crying for her momma.

The next moment, not 30 seconds from my attempt, Julie held out her hands and the young girl almost leapt into her arms. Irene held the back of her hand against Jenn's forehead as Julie cuddled the little girl and quietly reassured her that we were going to get her momma. I poured Jim a cup of coffee and Irene found juice and buttered muffins for the kids.

We moved outside and sat our breakfast contribution on the table as others moved out to join us. Sheila had outdone herself fixing breakfast this morning and I noticed that she seemed to be paying close attention to Jim. I shifted my gaze and observed Irene make a comment to Janet, who smiled at what she told her. Then a few minutes later I looked up and saw Julie having a similar quick conversation with Sheila. Lana and Laura weren't yet up but I could also imagine that they would hear something comparable. As soon as the women spoke they came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek and sat next to me at the table. Jim raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

As soon as most of us were at the table I asked Jim if he knew any of the others in Piney Woods that were singled out by Pastor Sam as purported Agents of the Antichrist. Jim reached up and took the pipe out of his mouth and said, "I'm not totally sure of all of them, but I'd bet the farm that I can tell you three of them. I'd bet these three would know if there were any more."

I could see the light bulbs pop up around the table as everyone had the same thought. Jim voiced it when he said, "You're right smart for a young'un."

I smiled and said, "We got to talking last night about something else that came up and Irene came up with the idea. She's an extremely smart woman. Of course every one of my brides-to-be is smarter than me."

As soon as I said that Jim almost dropped his cup of coffee. He then looked from Kari to Irene to Julie. He recovered well and said, "I don't know about that. Any man that can convince three of the purtiest ladies I have ever laid eyes on to ... uh ... um ... take him for a husband must be pretty damn smart himself."

At that point I smiled because I could see he was still trying to figure things out. He told me later that if he hadn't known Tom was such a straight shooter, he would have thought he had escaped from one crazy mess into another. Finally I sat down and told Jim our story and that we were at that moment just living together as we waited for things to settle down enough that we could have a formal ceremony.

Tom spoke up and added his two-cents, "Society's going to have to change drastically to adapt to new circumstances. From what we've seen so far there aren't gonna be that many people left. Who knows how they will divide-out. I think what Steve's doing will be more common in the future. Our kids may even have to have line marriages or other types of relationships to make things work out. There are gonna be more risks and, with no doctors, shorter life spans. It may take the stability provided by those types of marriages to make it possible to safely raise and nurture children. Single partner marriages are relatively new in the scheme of things. Hell, most of the old testament of the Bible talks about multiple wives and consorts of the leaders during those times. That was to make sure they had heirs and was the rule, not the exception. In those times the number of wives a man had was more of a reflection on his ability to provide for them and I think we're gonna end up with something similar."

Jim looked at Tom and then to me and said, "I don't think it's anybody's business but I don't cotton to someone being forced into being a consort the way Pastor Sam did. I sure didn't think anyone from Piney Woods would have agreed with what he did. Hell, when he said that I expected that the daddies of those young girls would get together and ride Pastor Sam out of there on a rail. Those girls didn't have any say so in it. I heard some were dragged to the church kicking and screaming by their daddies. I don't cotton to that at all."

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement. In the end Jim understood that I wasn't forcing anyone to live by my rules or to approve of how we lived. I also wasn't forcing anyone into living with me by saying it was God's will, the way Pastor Sam was doing. After that was settled we talked about defense and found that Jim was very familiar with the M16 as he had used it in Vietnam. He had been a squad leader in Nam and thought that our method of evacuating him would work on the other three 'Agents' that he knew.

Although this was a small scale operation I doubted that anything else would get done until it was over. I didn't want to wait until evening if there was a possibility that we could complete the mission safely during daylight hours. We mapped out the locations of the farmhouses as best we could on the previously used large tactical map. Then we studied that map to plan ingress and egress routes that avoided over-flying other farmhouses or roads as much as was practical. Jim's knowledge of the area allowed us to mark safe landing zones away from the farm houses and any roads. While doing this we filled in as much information on the small farming community as possible. We added the farms and homes of all of those that both Tom and Jim knew and especially marked the location of the farms of the deacons of the small church and the location of the church and parsonage, which was on the same lot as the church. Kari then used the copier to reduce the large map into tactical maps that we could use for the actual mission. We decided that three person teams were optimal as it allowed backup and allowed room in the helo for passengers for the return trip.

Even though it was time consuming we planned to fly back to the base after every rescue. We knew it would be tiring but we planned to keep going until we ran out of people to evacuate. Tom insisted on being the third person. With his military background he was designated as mission leader for the evacuations. We would probably keep the same team for all rescues. After a quick trip to the armory to outfit Jim with weapons, we headed for the helo. Everyone on the base came out to the flight line to watch us off. It was agreed that Sheila and Janet would take the kids back to the BOQ after we took off. Tom asked Irene to bring the ambulance to the flight line in case we ended up with a medical emergency.

We took off shortly after ten in the morning headed to the first farm. This farm was slightly closer to the base than Jim's farm. The problem was that the farmhouse faced south and was close to a main road. We actually had to circle a good bit to the west in order to land in a field behind and out of sight of the farmhouse. Since it was daylight I flew as low as possible, just above power line height. This made the flight a bit slower but there was less chance of being spotted. Everything went well as we moved into position in the field. The field was more open than I liked but was isolated from everything except for an almost overgrown dirt road nearby.

I settled in for the wait in the shade under the helo. I brought a good pair of binoculars and used them to keep Tom and Jim in sight as long as possible. I saw where Tom stopped behind an outbuilding as Jim went forward into an area that I couldn't see. I hated this waiting game and knew I would need patience during this operation. Finally without a signal I noticed that Tom stood up and almost immediately Jim reappeared and they started back. As soon as they were within shouting range Jim hollered, "No one home ... looks like we may be too late."

We examined the tactical map and decided to fly directly to the next target. We notified Kari of that change as soon as we were airborne. The flight was shorter than the flight from the base even with another circuitous route. The field was almost too close to the house, especially if there were unfriendlies in the area. Again I settled down to wait. This time, because of the terrain, I was unable to keep Tom or Jim in sight. Tom used one word signals over the military radio to keep me apprised of the operation. Sooner than I expected Tom said, "Empty!" which was our prearranged signal letting me know there was no one home. Again it seemed that the person had cleared out, he was already apprehended by the constables or Jim was wrong in his belief that that person had resisted Pastor Sam's call.

As soon as we had an opportunity to talk Jim eliminated that last possibility. "There was a gunfight at the house. Windows were busted out, probably by shotguns. I didn't see any blood except for Brad's old hunting dog that usually laid up under the front porch. Somebody put that dog down with a bullet to the head. There weren't any cause to do that."

I hoped bad luck didn't come in threes this time. The last place wasn't on the south end of Piney Woods; it was more towards the north. I had to fly in between two farms that were owned by deacons who were now constables in the church. Jim figured that Bill Jenkins would probably be one of the first guys that the constables came for because his farm butted up against theirs. Unlike the other two farms we had visited that morning Bill Jenkins was home. We could hear gunshots as we landed in the pasture back of the barn. I decided to go with Jim and Tom and we cautiously approached the house.

Tom spaced us out and we moved around to the front of the house, carefully keeping well outside the line of fire. Someone in the house had three men out front pinned down behind an oversized pick-up truck. I could see a fourth man laying face down in front of the house with a shotgun beside him. We briefly discussed tactics and Tom directed us into position with hand signals. Shots were coming from the front two windows of the single story house. One of those windows looked like it had been blown out by a shotgun blast. As we watched someone fired a shot at the pick-up every five or ten seconds from behind the sill of that blown out window. When that someone paused to reload someone else took up firing from a hole in the other window. The three men behind the truck were waiting it out and not returning fire.

Tom motioned the two of us into prone firing positions about 100 feet behind and to the left of the constables. I was peering out from around a telephone pole that had weeds and the remains of an old fence line close by. Jim was nearby, lying behind more weeds and another post in that same fence line. Tom moved off to the right and soon we had the three boxed in as pretty as you please. Tom gave a click on the radios letting us know he was in position. As soon as Jim heard that he put a three-round burst into the bumper of the truck next to the constables. The three men immediately hit the ground and almost fought each other to get up under that truck. Someone from the house saw this and put some shots up under the truck. The bedlam that followed sounded like a major battle in a small war. There were screams followed by shots from under the truck towards the house. I heard one of the gunmen calmly access the situation, "Roy's been hit. Stay behind the tires. Watch out behind us."