Chapter 52

At least I got another turn playing with and then feeding Kita and Chiqa. When those two were full and napping I had a nice plate of my own to deal with and I was more than happy to get rid of the bison steak and mashed potatoes. I did get the hint it was a prelude to some request from Rose though, and I was almost right.

It wasn't really a request, but it was a reasonable near order. Rose hadn't bothered to mention the hundred and twenty dozen eggs she'd brought with her. These weren't for eating though, they were hatchable eggs. Sigfried had done something to them to make sure things didn't go horribly wrong during shipment. Rose had also managed to get a metal henhouse packed without using up too much room.

Of course the job of assembling it was left to me. I headed for our cave's door to go to the garage and look it over, but Rose had news for me there too.

"Sigfried was also allowed to create our new bedroom and bathroom before they left," she said, and then led me to it.

"Why are you only telling me about it now?"

"I wanted to surprise you of course, especially since there are a few things you need to finish. I was sure you'd want to personalize it," she said, and her grin let me know it probably wouldn't be a backbreaking job.

At first glance it didn't look like such a much, but it did have a more or less normal door and it was big. It also had a door opening onto the inside of the garage and right about the middle of the back wall there was a door to our new bathroom.

The bathroom was the most impressive part of the deal. Apparently Sigfried could do some detailed work with whatever he used to remove solid rock. We had a long vanity made entirely from rock and the top and face bowls were all polished granite.

There were three long and wide bathtubs, one giant hot tub, and four shower stalls made the same way and I even had a polished granite urinal along with four granite shitters. All the plumbing was already in place and working, but the odd part was no cabinet doors on anything. There were framed glass doors for all the showers, but not a cabinet door one and no drawers either, though there were spaces left for drawers seemingly everywhere.

"I left the cabinet making out and told Sigfried you could get around to it yourself sooner or later," Rose said, and grinned.

"I guess I can at that, but I'm damned sure glad you at least had him furnish the big mirror," I said, since it was cabinet top to ceiling and ran for the whole twenty or so feet of the vanity.

"Well silly, I knew you couldn't make a mirror."

"Well I'm proud of you for everything you got out of it. I didn't mind sleeping out in the cave with everyone else, but I'll admit I'll like this better. What about Kita and Chiqa?" I asked.

"Didn't you see the other doorway? It leads through a hall back into their rooms," she said, and then showed me where it was, near the wall seperating us from the main cave with its hall running down along the outside of the new bathroom.

"It's all really nice, but what about the chickens?"

She led me out the door and into the garage. She showed me the pallet with our henhouse parts in it and even pointed out the cases the eggs were in. Hell, all I had to do was get started.

The henhouse was well thought out. The instructions suggested I assemble the outer shell first and not bother with the nests and such until the chicks had hatched and grown to a reasonable size. Thankfully Rose sweet-talked George and Bill into helping me with it.

None of the assembly was hard work or complicated, but there was a lot of fitting and bolting things together. The panels were sheet metal, but they were a fairly light gauge. When I found out Rose wanted it in the garage I understood all they had to do was hold together and be strong enough to keep the chickens inside.

Even though putting it together wasn't too complicated it still took time since it was so big. The damned thing was forty by a hundred feet, and of course there were plenty of water troughs and plumbing for them. Still, I liked eggs a lot and this would provide a permanent supply. I wondered if we could mix in some guineas later.

Rose and in fact all our women did their best to make it seem the chicken house was worth our time. We were stuffed full at every meal and fucked senseless every night. Even Kita bragged on my hard work and Chiqa seemed to grin and gurgle more than usual.

After two and a half days of construction we were done with the outer shell and Rose declared it was time to put the eggs into the incubators. Hell, even that took half a day, but at least the women did most of it. I felt relived after it was over though since Rose assured me it would be twelve days before the hatching started, and they could take it from here until time to start assembling the nest.

Silly me, I thought we'd have days now to relax. Wrong. I know good and well Rose put Catla up to asking me if I didn't think we needed to bear down on putting away some meat for the winter.

"We have the new freezers and the walk in cooler now and we can store meat much more easily," she said, making it all sound so reasonable.

What the hell? She was right and from previous behavior I knew I'd mostly be shooting and watching. There was another benefit to hunting now too. If I worked it right we should be able to find game up on the plateau and could probably shoot from quite a distance. I might finally have a use for the three monstrously expensive Barrett fifties.

After breakfast the next morning George, Bill, and I took one Barrett each and set out to sight in our scopes. About halfway to the other end of our shelf there was a long straight stretch along the path which should work well for firing.

We saddled up and took off dragging a travois with several skins for ground pads, a spotting scope, and several target stands and targets. We rode to the end of the planned firing range, set up the targets and worked our way back, stopping at twenty-five yards first and then moving back a hundred yards at a time.

It sounds simple and it is mostly. Still, a Barrett lets you know about it when you pull the trigger and getting one sighted in for five hundred yards is a lot more work than sighting something in for one hundred or two hundred yards. It was nearly two PM before we were all comfortable with our adjustments. The Barretts performed perfectly and the excellent scopes gave us no problems, but it took a lot of shooting and I think we all had sore shoulders by the time we quit.

We made our plans at the supper table. We were taking two days to rest up and get ready then on the third morning about two thirds of our people were heading out to harvest some meat. Rose volunteered to drive the truck with one trailer - Keeta was bringing the skidder and dragging one of the heavy-duty travois with casters attached. Most of the rest of us were riding horses. The remainder would ride in the trailer.

For the next two days I mostly sat around on my ass, playing with Kita and Chiqa when they were awake and with my two new dogs when they weren't. Prince and Suzy appreciated the attention too. On the afternoon before the morning we'd head out I gathered up everything I thought we'd need and put it in the trailer.