Chapter 209

After my ride the next morning I checked the mash. I found it still working as I expected it to be. I drank two cups of coffee at my house before I walked down to open the gate for Jeremy. He actually got out of the car and hugged me. It was really quite strange as it was the first time he had ever done so.

I went immediately to the Jerry's trailer to wait for Jeremy to help me hook it to the SUV. When we had it ready, he took off while I made one last coffee to travel. I went down town to watch the The Brit and Jeremy decide what to do with the furniture. There were two floors, so to keep from moving it twice, I suggested they decide or just leave it by the door. It ended up in a pile by the back door. I rode with The Brit to take the trailer back to Jerry.

"Jerry what you doing home in the middle of the week?" I asked when he came out to greet us.

"I didn't get a job till the end of the week. I'm going to New York City to pick up a load of costumes for a road show company of 'The Bird Cage' or some such thing."

"Sounds like fun. Here is your hundred bucks," I said handing him the single bill.

"Silvia, wouldn't you like to buy this thing?" Jerry asked.

"Jerry, I got nothing to pull it with. I might could pull your little horse trailer looking thing," I said.

"I need that one. This is the one that is surplus," he said.

"How much you need for it Jerry," The Brit asked.

"Nine hundred," Jerry said. I didn't comment though I knew it was too much. I might step in, if The Brit was about to get taken.

"Jerry, if it were brand new it might be worth close to that but in the condition it is in now, it is hardly worth half that. Probably we have paid enough in the two rentals to cover it's real worth," The Brit said.

"You might ought to look it up," Jerry suggested.

"I did Jerry. I found that with this many road miles on a trailer like this, I would be a fool to pay more than five hundred, and we have already paid you two. I think three hundred is more than fair," The Brit said.

"To be honest I need some cash right now. If you want to do that five cash right now, I'd probably take it," Jerry said.

"Can I store it at your place Silvia?" The Brit asked.

"Sure," I said. If it were anyone else I would have said, hell no. So instead of dropping it off we took it back to my compound, where I had The Brit drop it near the still house. Even so the Brit had to give me a ride back to town.

Before I left The Brit's pub, I called the gun store. Fed Ex had brought both my weapons. All I had to do was deliver the pistol permit and fill out the long gun paperwork and it was all mine.

I drove the twenty minutes to Dobson. From a town where two cars was a traffic jam, even the five stop light main street of Dobson was too big for me. I found the gun store on the outskirts of town to be almost empty. I showed my Identification and my permit. They delivered my two weapons only after I gave them the cash remaining to be paid.

The .22 magnum revolver was larger then my current pistol The current pistol frame was as heavy, but the new one had a longer barrel and longer hand grips. I wasn't sure how it would fit in the upside down rig. Since it had a flap with Velcro it probably would do fine.

I put the weapons in the cruiser and then drove straight home. I didn't want to have any problems with some clown trying to car jack me. I had way too much firepower for the gun control nuts to overlook. In spite of my concern, I made it home with absolutely no problems.

I checked the mash and it was working down pretty well. It should be ready to cook the next day or the one after. I wanted to shoot the two new guns, but I didn't want to do it till I could go to a range. I did not want to shoot them on my property. It wasn't flat land, but there wasn't a good spot to use for a backstop either. Shooting a shotgun was one thing, a rifle with an effective kill range of over half a mile was quite another.

I locked the new rifle in the gun safe I had purchased on line a few months earlier. I also locked the pistol that the SBI had once had in their lab in the safe. I managed to get the new pistol in the upside down rig. It was way to big a frame for the pocket of my cargo pants. It looked like for those it was the five shot model. That or the two shot derringer toy. That derringer was just barely better than throwing rocks, but it was cute.

A couple of days later I started the cook off, while The Brit and Jeremy were working out their plans for the future. I didn't start it till the mash had worked off completely. Then I added a little more pot stalks to the strained mash in the cooker. I cooked it almost 24 hours before it all distilled down to alcohol. A lot of the time was spent in getting the mash up to 175 degrees. It took a while since there was no pressure in the pressure cooker. The lid was on just to catch all the steam then condense it back to alcohol.

It was four days of continuous cooking to get all thirty gallons of mash cooked off. Fortunately I could take naps and watch TV on the computer. The on line TV was a benefit of having WIFI on my compound. When the run was over, I bottled a little over eight gallons at 120proof green dragon. The value of it hooch was about $2500. It had taken a little over ten days all told to get it cooked. Best of all it was tax free money.