Chapter 28

The food was especially good when it was ready, and I wasn't a bit ashamed to grab a couple of Lone Star Long Necks to wash it down. From the size of the steaks, the amount of beans, and the size of the potato I knew this must be a pre-nap meal. Hell, we'd been driving all night and I was ready for a little rest.

Apparently the girls were too, since all of them headed for my tractor after putting out the fire and throwing the trash into the trashcan, which was one of the first things they unpacked.

"Come on and rock us to sleep, Tommy. We're tired," Jerrilyn said.

I thought about the horses and mules then and decided they'd have to keep on hanging out in the trailers. It would take a good hour or two to get them out and hobbled and I was just too tired. Maybe I'd just take a short nap.

The women were already naked and in bed when I made it. Hell, Christine and Jackie were already asleep. I dropped my clothes and found a place on the outside, but Jerrilyn and Selene rolled over me and got me over beside Kahlila. We settled down then and had a good nap, as in about five hours worth.

An ass slapping contest broke out when naptime was over. I'll admit I was the one who started it and I should have known better since it immediately degenerated into a slapping Tommy on the ass contest. At least it got me out of bed and dressed first. I left the women to their own devices and went out to look for a bush to water.

Thinking about the horses and mules I decided we needed an easily assembled and installed electric fence worse than a cat needed a place to scratch. I didn't see any way around it. I knew I'd be buying half-inch rebar and insulators as soon as we got home.

The girls had an easier time of it when they appeared. Mostly because they knew where everything was stored in the trailers. They even put up the picnic table and the camping type light system while they were getting supper ready to cook and the fire ready to do the cooking. They did call me over to help them get the tent out and they also needed my help getting the Generac on the ground.

At some time or another they had caused to be built a small framework for the Generac to sit in and it was on big pneumatic casters. It was easy to handle once we had it on the ground, hell it even had a pull handle built on the end with the steering wheels, but it did take a small chain hoist to let it down to the ground from the trailer floor.

They showed me where to roll it and two of them came behind me unrolling a giant custom made extension cord that had two double-duplex receptacles for 220 volt service and eight of same for 110 volt service. With a little quizzing I learned they'd found a cooperative electrician who'd made the extension cord for them out of 10-3 SJ cable.

"That cord is heavy, but it's all in one piece and the guy who made it for us said it was a lot safer that way," Christine said.

"It is a lot safer, and since he made it of such heavy wire it'll do a good job. We can even run the air conditioner off it," I said.

"Well duh! It's what we told him we wanted to do with it. Although it's so nice up here in these hills we might not even need it," Jerrilyn said.

"Ha, you just wait until Tommy is rested and raring to go. We'll need the air conditioner to cool us down after he gets done with us," Kahlila said, and it was so unexpected coming from her all the others laughed.

"You can laugh now, but you'll see I'm right," she said, for emphasis.

"What about the little river we crossed. Can't we go swimming in it? It'll probably cool us off," Selene said.

"We can indeed. That's the Guadalupe River - it's one of the nicest little rivers in Texas. Not too big, not too small, and not too damned cold to get into," I said.

"We'll have to try it out tomorrow, but right now we need to get cooking," Jackie said, and started putting steaks on the larger grill grate she'd pulled out of somewhere.

"I guess I'll get started on the tent while y'all are cooking," I said.

"The small one we'd probably better put up first is in the back of your truck," Christine said.

"I thought we were going to put up the big one so we could use the air conditioner. It's why I got it out already," I said.

"We had a hole cut in the small one so we could use the air conditioner in it too. We brought the big one along so we could practice putting it up, but we figured we'd actually use the small tent for the summer months and use the bigger one for the winter," Jerrilyn said.

"It seems a little backward to me, but I'll put the small one up first since I can do it by myself. We can wrassle out the details later when we get the big one put up," I said.

I had the tent about halfway up when they put the meat on the fire and I was done with the basics by the time supper was ready so I called a halt to tent erecting and settled down at the picnic table for food and the women were right behind me.

"You know, I hate to say it, but Tommy might be right about putting up the big tent. We've slept in the other one already, or all of us but Kahlila have, and we might need to put the other one up and give it a try," Jackie said.

"Naw, we'll do just fine in the small one for this trip," Jerrilyn said.

"Let's don't get in a fight over it. We'll just sleep in the small one tonight and tomorrow I'll put up the big one and we can take a turn sleeping in it. Then we'll know how we feel about both of them," I said, and went right back to eating.

It seemed to settle things on the tent front and we ate in peace. As soon as we were done they were up and cleaning. I was sent off to walk down the hill and get five gallons of river water to wash dishes in.

I didn't mind and I knew good and well the water in the Guadalupe was clean enough for such. It was clean enough I wouldn't bitch about eating off dishes washed in it anyway. Especially when I learned the girls had looked around on the Internet until they found some dishwashing soap for using in potable water instead of drinking water.

Apparently it had some kind of environmentally friendly bug killing ingredient they claimed would wipe off with paper towels after it sanitized the dishes. Shit, I guess you could find everything on the Internet.

The fresh air and the nap, not to mention the good cooked over an open fire dinner had the girls feeling frisky. They all wanted to take a Tommy ride when we made it into the bed for the night, and damned if I wasn't looking forward to it myself.

I think they were all just showing off when they started the third round, but I did my duty to God and the Guadalupe and hosed them all one more time. I didn't have one bit of trouble getting to sleep.

I also didn't have one bit of trouble waking not five minutes later. The girls were grumbling almost right away, but I knew we had to get up and dressed again.

"What is it Tommy?" Jerrilyn asked.

"We forgot to let the horses and mules out," I said.

"Damned if we didn't. They were so quiet over there I didn't even notice." Jackie said.

"I didn't either. I remember thinking we had to let them out soon when we took our nap, but I forgot about them completely when we got up," Kahlila said.

It wasn't as big a job as it had sounded when we started out with them. Since Jack and Jenny had been loaded last they were first to get out. Jack was a real pain in the ass about getting the hobbles on. He knew somehow what we were doing to him and though he didn't actually fight, he would pick up the foot you were trying to work with just at the last minute.