Chapter 8: Day Eight - Sunday

I awoke early with an intense pressure on my bladder. I was wedged between Irene and Kari and at least part of the problem was Kari's knee which had worked its way up under me. As much as I loved these women and wanted every night to be with each of them, at that moment I realized that we had to find a larger bed. Kari awoke as I moved out from under her and mumbled something that sounded like, "Mom just a few more minutes, please."

I got out of bed and made my way to the bathroom where I performed all of my obligatory morning functions. I wanted nothing more than to crawl back in bed among the beautiful flesh that was so unashamedly displayed for my enjoyment but I knew to do so would wake them from the sleep they deserved and needed. I made my way into the living area and started the coffee. I thought that normally this time in the morning I would be looking for my paper or turning on the early morning news on the internet or TV to catch up on events in the rest of the world. In lieu of that I peeked out the heavy curtains to at least get a first hand peek at the day's weather. As I noticed the cloudless sky I also noticed Tom, holding a cup of coffee, was already busy making a list of some kind at the table we had left outside. I decided to dress and join him.

I quietly dressed, poured my own cup of coffee and went outside to join Tom, who smiled when he saw me and said, "Another early riser."

I hadn't even looked to see what time it was so I wasn't sure whether he was being serious or making a joke. I grinned back and said, "Not very early for a farmer, I'm sure."

Tom looked at me and smiled. Then he said, "A lot of folks think farmers work from sunup to sundown and there are times when that's true, but most of the time I get up at 6:30 or 7:00 and have my coffee and breakfast before venturing out. I like a little quiet time in the morning to think and plan out what I'm going to do for the day. I was just making a list of what we're going to need to fence the livestock. I thought as long as we were doing that we could pick up what seed is available from the supply houses downtown and find a place to store them here. We'll also need a tractor and a power auger attachment in order to set the post without killing ourselves. I happen to know where we can get all of that stuff and I always make lists to make sure I don't have to end up going back to town for some dollar part that I've forgot."

Having made three trips to the hardware store for every Saturday project I had ever completed, I smiled at Tom and said, "Tom, you're a smarter man than me. I thought three trips to town was a requirement for any worthwhile project."

Tom answered, "Not when you live this far from town, although this is closer than I was before. That's why I don't have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn every morning. I'm excited about this. My dad was a farmer and owned that piece of land before me. Farming is all I can remember but it had gotten to be a business, more than a way of life. I had to plant large acreages of cash crops to sell and each year it seemed that the loan at the co-op would get larger, rather than smaller. Now I can grow what we need and want and work on a variety of crops. I can be a farmer again, rather than a businessman who happens to own a farm."

I drained my coffee and said, "I'm glad you're happy about it. I was worried that I was going to have to beg you to stay here rather than return to your farm. I know starting over here will mean a lot more work than it would have been at the farm, but I believe we need to stick together."

Tom was shaking his head and said, "It will be a lot more work to set up for the livestock and to get the fields ready the first time, but after that it will be easier here. The roads are better, the fields will be closer to where I live and I can arrange things pretty much so that they will be closer together. Where I was at I didn't own enough land to support my family and so I had to rent fields. Those fields were spread out all over northern Santa Rosa County. Some days I would ride my tractor more on the road, getting from one field to another, than I would spend plowing the fields. Here everything is close by and I won't be farming for the bank. Once I get it going this will be a much smoother operation."

I finished my coffee and indicated I was going to return and fill up my cup. Tom declined my offer of a fresh cup and said he needed to start waking his family to get them ready for the day. As I started to get up Tom remarked, "So what did you guys decide last night?"

I knew what he was talking about but was surprised that he knew so I cautiously queried, "Not to be coy but what makes you think we were deciding something last night?"

Tom answered, "I know it may seem like it's none of my business but my womenfolk all talk. All that talk yesterday between the twins and your women at every turn could only be them politicking for what they want. Your women seemed to be agreeable and I didn't see anybody take any offense so I figured they would have let you in on what was going on last night. Am I wrong?"

I said, "No, you're not wrong. Lana and Laura are wonderful women and I know you have to be proud of them. We talked about it and decided to wait and not force a decision now. We've only been together a week and haven't really even figured out how our existing relationship is going to work. It wouldn't be fair to bring them into the middle of something that is in that much flux. We're not rejecting the twins but we do need time to get to know each other and make a good rather than a hurried decision. I know it will be hard for them not having an answer right away but we all agreed we need to wait a while."

Tom smiled at me and said, "Steve, that's one of the things I like about you. You use your head and try to plan ahead rather than take the easy road. I'm sure they will be disappointed but they're smart enough to understand it's the right decision. And the good thing will be that it won't be me telling them this time."

More seriously I said, "Me either. This started out between the women and I'm gonna' let the women explain our decision. That doesn't mean that it won't end up happening in the end. From the short talks I've had with your daughters any man would be fortunate to have either one of the two agree to be his wife. That's the rub, we're talking about one man taking both of them as his wife and that man already has three other wives. I think we'll end up finding the population of men and women still pretty much even as we find more people and what we accept now may be strongly discouraged or even deemed illegal in the future."

Tom looked at me and asked, "What would you do if that happened?"

I looked at him and said, "I would hope to be grandfathered in as an existing relationship. Barring that we would move to wherever we can live in peace. I will assume that there will be plenty of room in the world for non-conformist in the future. I don't really expect our plural marriage to be outlawed, but I don't expect it to become the norm either. Tom, don't get me wrong, I love Kari, Irene and Julie just as much as I'm sure you love Janet. If we decide to expand our marriage it would be because we all fell in love with the new women and it has to be by unanimous consent. Right now it's all just too new to us."

At that moment the door opened to our suite of rooms and three visions of beauty came forth bearing plates of food. They smiled and said hello to Tom as they deposited breakfast fixings on the table. They were each dressed in matching shorts and T-shirts and after laying the feast before us each in turn gave me a brief buss on my lips, smiled and then headed back inside. Julie turned to us at the door and said, "Tom, there's more inside, in fact there's plenty for everyone if you want to wake up your family."

Lana and Laura must have been watching out their own window waiting for my women to make an appearance because they paraded out almost as soon as the food was deposited on the table. They came over looking a bit disheartened and puzzled. I found later that the girls were supposed to have let them know the results of our talk first thing this morning. In fact, they had really expected us to come knocking on their door last evening with the good news and when that didn't happen they thought they had been rejected. They came to the table carrying a large container of freshly squeezed orange juice and plates, cups and silverware. After depositing this on the table they looked up at me with an almost pleading look for a hint of what had been decided and when receiving no information headed to the door of my suite. I trailed along behind them, not wanting to be there but knowing that I should be. Surprisingly, Lana and Laura accepted the news almost stoically. After Irene explained to them that it wasn't really an answer, but more a delay to give us time to explore our own relationship and to get to know them, they seemed relieved.

By the time we returned to the table Tom had gathered Janet, Sheila and the kids. He must have said something to the group because the mood was somber. Immediately Julie started a discussion about our shopping excursion and at least everyone was excited about that. We soon finished all the pancakes, bacon, eggs and juice and formed up into groups for the trip. I insisted that we go armed and each of our original group plus Tom belted on a pistol. In addition, the M16s were stowed in the trucks we were going to take. We knew that we needed to have someone stay and guard the base while we were away. Knowing how the women felt about shopping I would have volunteered had I not felt I might be needed to muscle some of the fencing material with Tom. It ended up that Laura this time stayed with Julie and manned the MCP during our absence. We had found the day before that the range of the security radios was much further than we had imagined and I was hopeful that range would stretch a bit more into what had been the town of Milton.

I then thought of something I should have considered of earlier, using a password when we entered the base gate. We also created a password that would gain us entry but would tell those inside that we had been taken hostage. I hoped we would never to have to use that particular password, but if we did at least we would give the guards a fighting chance to either escape or aid us.

The morning passed blissfully. I noticed that Lana tried to spend time with me and the girls but other than that seemed to have accepted our decision. Tom found all of the fencing materials that he needed and loaded them up on a flatbed trailer along with the new tractor and auger attachment. We had nearly a full load on the trailer and left it sitting in the front of the store as we continued our shopping. I guess shopping would be the wrong word as we didn't pay for anything, but again none of the owners of the property were alive to ask for payment.

We made stops at the department store that we had earlier used to stock up on clothes before we went to the base. Soon we had almost more than we could carry out of the store in one trip loaded in the back of the truck. I noticed during the shopping that Lana took Kari back to the back of the store where the showers were that we had used. We stopped at a large hardware store downtown. The girls wanted to head east of town to the large Wally World superstore but I vetoed that after seeing the number and crowded condition of the cars on the highway.

The surprising thing to me was that none of the stores we visited or looked at seemed to have been vandalized. I had thought that by now we would have seen evidence of survivors coming into town or wandering through the area. Most of downtown Milton is on both sides of highway 90, which was the main east-west highway across northern Florida before interstate 10 went through several miles south of town. Highway 90 was still a heavily traveled and with the number and severity of the crashes on that road I could only imagine what interstate 10 looked like with cars traveling at 80 mph suddenly becoming driverless and ploughed into each other. Several crashes could make a bridge pretty near impassable. Still you would think a few people would have happened by.

We made it back to the base in the early afternoon. We passed through the gate after Lana asked us for our password. Kari and Lana were professional until we got to the BOQ parking lot and then they were like a couple of little girls demanding to know what they had been brought from town. I was in an introspective mood and thought to myself how many little things were still the same even with our whole world turned upside down.

We ate sandwiches for lunch, talking about all we had seen or not seen. I could see that the rest were anxious for us to get back in the air and hunt for more survivors. Our discussion centered on prioritizing our workload. We all agreed those priorities were to find as many survivors as possible while completing the fencing needed to move the farm animals to the base. It was decided that four of us, including one of the children, would work full time searching for survivors. I explained that using the range of the T-34 we could fly an extended search in the morning and then another in the afternoon. That would allow for more consistent search patterns. The location of each flight and the location of any survivors would be plotted. If we found a consistent pattern to where the survivors were found we would recheck those areas. It was also decided that those not involved with the searching would be busy with our second priority, making the base into a more independent community, and that everyone except for Janet, Tom and I would rotate between tasks on a daily basis.

Tom explained that there were other tasks that were essential to moving the animals here other than putting up the fence. Feed and water supplies would have to be maintained. He figured that digging holes with the power auger and setting the posts in the holes was at most a two person operation. He hoped that the others not busy with that could be readying the few outbuildings he had selected for feed and farm implements. Janet said she knew what would be needed and could make certain that was done. Janet's crew could also help Tom tamp in the fence posts and string up fencing at the proper time.

It was decided that Sheila would stay back and make sure meals were prepared and to help settle any new survivors that were found. She would also be responsible for preparing the crew rosters for the next day. I asked Sheila to mix up the crews as much as possible so that we could all get used to working with each other. The only exception was that one of the children was always to be on my crew and the other on Janet's crew. I had spoken to both Janet and Tom and each agreed that both children could fly as observers once I considered them qualified.