Chapter 23

Tuesday

The dogs seemed to be waiting for me this morning, which reminded me that I needed to get their handlers set up with more permanent housing. I was in the doorway watching their coursing game when a pair of arms slipped around my waist. “I’m trying to learn to get up at the same ungodly hour that you do,” Jan sighed.

“Never happen,” I chuckled. “You girls would have to go to sleep far too early in order to get up at this hour,” I reminded her.

“True, but you are our focus. I’m rereading Lucky Jim’s journal, and there were two things Emma said when she wrote a brief passage in his journal that caught my eye.

“The first was that people bonded to Jim, and through him, to each other. That’s what we feel like, each of us in your harem, even the twins and the Hanley women. We feel bonded to you, and through you, to each other. We might have fun together for a while if you weren’t here, but it wouldn’t last, and wouldn’t feel as meaningful.

“The other comment was that Emma had dreamed for years of being Jim’s wife, singular, and how she almost came to blows with two girls from town who flirted with him. Two weeks after meeting Flo, she couldn’t imagine Flo not being part of their marriage, and she felt the same way almost immediately about Madison. She wasn’t even jealous of the women who only temporarily shared their marital bed, even if it was only one time.

“When I was younger and read that, I thought she was crazy. After reading it again, I know exactly how she feels. Chloe and the other girls feel the same way, even Stella and Nicole. I know Stella hopes you feel close enough to her soon to let her have another baby. She’s only thirty-three and wants to have a child she can raise in a loving home. Chloe would like to start on a family soon, and I’d like at least one more, several more if you’d agree,” she whispered seductively in my ear.

“Get a room you two; I’ve only got a battery-powered toy to keep me happy for another month,” Toni grumbled playfully from behind us. Laughing, I chased Jan into my study. After locking the door so we wouldn’t be interrupted, she stretched herself enticingly across my desk.

“Definitely worth waking up early for,” she sighed contentedly, afterwards “but I think I’m going back to sleep.” She squeaked in surprise when I gave her a quick swat, sending her running and laughing towards the bedroom.

By now, most of the handlers were up and breakfast was being served to the early birds. Most conversation was about the new guns, and about my newest part-time job.

It was barely 6:00 when the phone rang, and the voice on the other end asked me about spelunking. Surprised, I purposely gave him the wrong return phrase and he hung up. When the phone rang again a few minutes later, it was Mr. Smith apologizing for not establishing communication protocols last night. He assured me that the previous caller was genuine. When he called again, I gave the proper passphrase.

“Do you have any open appointments this morning?” he asked. I hesitated, wondering if this was another passphrase. If so, Mr. Smith would have to fix it. Instead, I assumed he wanted to see me this morning.

“Any time after 7:00 would be fine,” I answered.

“Ah, an early riser,” he chuckled.

“I’m a farmer,” I replied.

“That explains it. I, too, spent time on a farm, but mine was on a Kibbutz. Still, I remain an early riser,” he commented. “I should be there shortly after 7:00,” he advised before we hung up.

Mr. Jones was prompt, and had a slight accent. Several handlers and a few of my men helped load everything into his S-92 civilian version of the Superhawk. He talked me into selling all the Russian guns and ammo, explaining that there were instances where leaving Western-made casings or slugs could be a bad thing. The whole world had access to Russian and Chinese weapons, so no fingers could be pointed at anyone based on Russian weapons or ammunition being used.

He promised to send me several gifts as compensation for selling him the guns I had wanted to keep. Climbing into the helicopter, he waved as his pilots hovered and then turned east.

When I got back to the house, Stella gave me a phone message and I called them back from my study. It was all I could do to concentrate when Stella followed me into the room and locked the door.

The call was from the construction company Mr. Smith had recommended. I explained that I needed a facility to land, house, load, and repair several helicopters, and told him what I had ordered so far. “Trust me, you’ll eventually need a runway, and hangars for jets, but those can wait,” he chuckled. He also suggested that I should at least plan the helicopter facility so it could be expanded. That sounded reasonable and I gave my approval. He said he’d be here tomorrow morning to look things over, and should have the first facilities I needed finished in five weeks. The concrete would take four weeks to cure fully.

Once I hung up the phone, Stella ended up in the same position that Jan had earlier, with the same outcome.

I had just finished cleaning up in the small bathroom off the study when the security specialist that Mr. Smith had suggested called. After we talked for a few minutes, he said that he’d be out tomorrow to look things over and make recommendations.

I found Connor Phelps at the ruins of the Reese house, wielding a propane flamethrower. Unlike military flamethrowers that sprayed a flammable liquid that coats everything, these simply shot out a flame like a lighter on steroids. They were just finishing the first phase and were starting to run the giant dozers to knock over trees and scrape the brush away when I got there. Several times, I heard the rifle report, presumably killing dangerous escaping snakes. I hoped that most of the non-venomous ones escaped since they helped reduce the rodent population.

I apologized and warned him that I had hired an outside contractor recommended by one of the government agencies to build the facilities for the helicopters. Surprisingly, he wasn’t upset about it. With all the other work I had for him, he knew he’d be busy for quite a while, and he knew I needed the facility built soon. Besides, he had no experience with aircraft hangars, even though he felt he could figure it out.

As I wandered across the property, I noticed that our beehives had been scattered around the property. I made a note in the notebook I usually carried with me to remind myself to make sure we had plenty of empty beehives next spring. Also, with more acreage being planted, we would need to buy more active beehives. Fortunately, the geraniol we used attracted bees to the empty hives when they swarmed. By leaving empty hives laced with geraniol around the perimeter, we used to get several swarms a year at my parents’ place. I also made a note to contact any companies in the area that specialized in the removal of wild beehives and capturing swarming bees. If the queen had been captured with the swarm, I’d buy the swarms.

Then I drove up the road to the Albright home to talk to them. “I figgered I’d be hearing from you sooner or later,” Sam Albright laughed. He thought I would come see him since I was buying up everything else in the area. I assured him that I was interested, but had no intention of pressuring him to sell before he was ready. Sadly, he was ready to sell because his wife was fighting MS, and he was forced to spend more and more time tending to her because they couldn’t afford a live-in nurse.

I made him a deal he couldn’t refuse. I would buy his land for the average of three estimates, less whatever debt remained to pay off. I agreed to lease his house to him for $100 a month for as long as he wanted to live here. I also promised to see that his wife got the best medical care possible if he couldn’t afford it. Sam had tears in his eyes when we finished.

He went with me to meet Mrs. Jefferson, a frail, elderly woman who hid fearfully behind her door when she answered it. When Sam explained the deal I made for his property, she almost collapsed. “Would you make me a deal like that, too?” she asked. “I’ve got no man and no place else to go,” she sobbed.

“Why don’t you come home with me for dinner to meet everyone?” I suggested. “I’m a U.S. Deputy Marshal,” I told her when she eyed me suspiciously. I pulled out my badge and ID, only to find out that she couldn’t read them because her glasses had broken a month ago.

“Grab what you need for tomorrow. Have dinner with us and spend the night in one of our extra guest rooms. Tomorrow, I’ll have someone take you into town to see an eye doctor and get you a new pair of glasses, my treat.” I promised.

“Why would you do that?” she asked suspiciously.

“Because I can. Life has been generous to me, and I do what I can to help others,” I answered.

“He offered me a lot more than he needed to for my property,” Sam reminded her. When she relented, I had a feeling that she would be joining the other women who cooked and took care of the house for me. I couldn’t imagine her continuing to live alone, but if she really wanted to, I’d buy her place and give her one of the small houses I intended to build for my employees. At least then, other families who could keep an eye on her would surround her.

I pulled into the Hanley house when I saw the truck with the cargo container leaving. The man from the auction house was excited that everything was packed. He expected the auction to be in about two weeks.

“You’ve got your fingers in a lot of pies,” Mrs. Jefferson chuckled.

“You have no idea,” I sighed.

Mrs. Jefferson was an instant hit when we got to the house. Several people let her try their spare pair of glasses and she found that Dr. Wagner’s non-prescription reading glasses were the closest to what she needed.

I told everyone that I was buying both properties. I’d reached an agreement with Sam Albright, although we couldn’t get it certified as organic for three years.

Mrs. Jefferson had been adamant about not having pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers used on her property when Sam grew crops there. That meant we could get the land certified and build another greenhouse for tomatoes or whatever.

After dinner, she spent the night in Janie’s apartment. Thank goodness, she didn’t ask why Janie wasn’t using it.

It was a bit intimidating seeing my bed filled with women with something on their collective mind, something besides the usual.

“We’ve been talking,” Marisa began the discussion.

The only thing she could have said that was scarier would have been, “We need to talk.”

“Ooookay,” I replied nervously. At least they thought it was funny.

“We all want you to marry Jan,” Chloe said.

“That decision is usually made with the guy on one knee and offering the woman a ring,” I replied. “Besides, how is that fair to the rest of you?”

“You can do the knee and ring thing anytime this week,” Marisa answered.

“The rest of us know that you care about each of us, but that our relationship with you is tied to your relationship with Jan. You’d think we’d be upset about that, but we’re not. We’ve recognized Jan as number one in the harem since the beginning,” Chloe explained.

“We want you to get married so we can start getting pregnant,” Cheryl snickered.

I looked from face to face. Each woman was practically holding her breath to see how I responded. I was glad Jan had given me a bit of warning this morning or I would have been clueless and speechless, my usual state. Instead, I’d had most of the day to let the thought bounce around in my subconscious. “There will be two conditions,” I warned. Despite the warning, there was an explosive gasp of relief followed quickly by ten giddy grins.

“I know that it’s no fault of yours, but some of you are seriously behind where you should be in school. I want to get tutors to help you catch up to where you should be. At that point, you can continue learning from tutors or go to public school. I expect each of you to at least graduate high school or get an equivalent diploma. I hope you will continue into college in order to learn more so you can help more with various aspects of operating the farm.

“I expect you to have at least graduated high school before considering becoming pregnant,” I said, “and I prefer to have only a couple of you pregnant at one time, maybe space them out a few months apart, but that’s not mandatory. The education is, though,” I said seriously.

The girls were looking back and forth at each other. The longer they looked back and forth and didn’t say anything, the more nervous I was. “We agree,” Jan finally said, and it was my turn to release the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

“I’d like to suggest starting with Stella, even though she will have three years of high school to complete,” Jan suggested.

“I was only fifteen when I had Cheryl,” Stella explained, smiling shyly at the surprised look on my face.

“I’ll leave it up to you to decide,” I said looking at Jan. As I started to get into bed, I stopped. “Oops, forgot something. I’ll be right back,” I said. I pulled on a robe I had on the back of the door and headed for the main study. A couple of the dogs hurried over to see if it was already playtime but went back to their rooms when I headed into the big study. I pulled the jewelry case out of the back of the locking bottom desk drawer where I had stashed it.

I’d already felt that some of the women would eventually reach this point, but hadn’t expected all of them to. Still, I thought I had enough rings, mainly because I had no idea what size ring Jan or the others wore. To compensate for that, I got six rings each in five sizes, and three each in two sizes higher and lower just to be safe. I had gotten the rings after finding the tunnels and the girls down there. Even then, I would have never expected them to become so attached so quickly.

I didn’t even try to hide the box, although it was definitely not a box for a single ring. It was more like a display box with a lid, one big enough to hold thirty or forty rings.

The size of the box had the girls baffled, but they were expecting something. “Janice Lynn Davies, will you marry me?” I asked as I knelt and held the box of rings out to her. Each ring had an identical, flawless, half-carat diamond, not that they could tell the quality right now.

“Yes,” she answered emotionally, pulling me up to hug.

“Are these all for me?” she teased.

“Yup, one for each finger, one for each toe, one for...” was as far as I got before she stopped me by kissing me again.

“I think I’d prefer to share them,” she said in a husky voice.

“Oh, who else gets toe rings?” I quipped, and was quickly dogpiled. They wouldn’t let me up until each of them had found a ring that fit.

“Okay, we’ve got what we want, we can go to sleep now,” Jan teased. They did go to sleep, but not before each of them showed their appreciation. When the others finished having their fun with me, Jan and I celebrated together.

I did warn them that they would have to be the ones to break it to their parents, but the rest of us would be there for moral support. I foresaw a trip to meet Chloe’s parents, to see Jan’s parents again, and to meet Stella’s parents. I doubted that they would want anything to do with the parents of Stella’s deceased husband, the girls’ father. I understood that the word father applied technically, but couldn’t bring myself to think of him as their father. What father could do something like that to his wife and daughters? What kind of misogynistic man could do something like that? What could make a man become like that?

Wednesday

The Russian twins, Lidiya and Lilia, were the ones to haul me into my study to polish the top of my desk after the dogs had their morning romp. I’m glad I keep the top of my desk clean or my things would have ended up on the floor.

I was surprised when Toni hugged me at the breakfast table. “For some reason, Arthur is being released more than two weeks early. He’ll be here at the same time as the other three men,” she commented, her tone of voice hinting that she thought I had something to do with it.

“I wasn’t aware of that, but it seems that Mr. Smith really wants me to have a helicopter available,” I replied.

The rest of the morning was a blur. Jan and Juwanna took Mrs. Jefferson to town to see her doctor and her eye doctor, getting her two pair of glasses in case she lost or broke one.

The men from the security company and the construction company arrived within minutes of each other. I took them into my study and showed them the planning map I had of the properties and added an outline around the two new properties.

The security man said he’d look everything over and get back with me later today. He accepted my offer to use an ATV and headed south. The contractor pointed at the area between the house and the creek, suggesting that we locate the facility there. Aside from the fact that most of the helicopters landed there already, he pointed out that I could eventually build a runway parallel to the creek if I decided that I needed one.

He already had pictures of similar facilities, and I wished my pilots and mechanics were here to look at them. When he learned that they were all ex-military, he assured me that they would love the facility. A one-car garage with a leaky roof would be an improvement over some of the facilities they had to put up with in Afghanistan. The price was a bit steep, but he reminded me that he intended to stock the facility completely with all the equipment we could possibly need and would provide tools for six mechanics.

“Six?” I questioned.

“I’ve dealt with these guys before. Once an operation of theirs proves useful, it tends to grow rapidly. I predict you’ll be installing an airstrip within six months, a year at most,” he warned.

As much as I didn’t want to believe it, I did. “Let’s get phase one finished but give me a rough estimate for the runway and necessary facilities for it,” I sighed resignedly. “Did they talk to you about installing a vault?” I asked.

“Yup, he recommended an underground room at least twenty by twenty with a bank vault door,” he said.

“Before you get too far with the plans, you need to see what you’re going to be building over,” I warned him.

“This place is absolutely perfect,” he exclaimed after we rode through the tunnel to my boathouse, to the gang house, and then to the gang boathouse. “We’ll install a freight elevator from inside the hangar down to the tunnel and install the vault along the tunnel so you can move pallets of heavy cargo down there. If you need more space, you can use the tunnel for storage. You could even use it to move the cargo to the other house or to one of the boathouses and ship it out on a boat!” he exclaimed excitedly.

“We’ll need to shore up the tunnel where the landing strip passes over it so it will even hold a jumbo jet. You never know what these guys will do,” he mused, as much to himself as to me.

With that, I left him to figure out the best place to put the helicopter facility and called my attorney about purchasing the two new properties. “Jesus, Jim, you’re going to own half the county soon,” he exclaimed. I started laughing, thinking about a similar comment I read in Lucky Jim’s diary about buying half the state. I sure as heck hope I didn’t end up with half the county.

I told him what I had offered for the Albright farm, and that I hadn’t talked price yet with Mrs. Jefferson. He promised to get three appraisals done for each property tomorrow.

I was amazed at the progress when I got back to the Reese house. The trees and brush had been cleared, the holes from removing trees and stumps had been filled in, and the entire area was leveled. The tree trunks had been stripped of branches and stacked well away from where they were working. They had used a large backhoe to drag everything that was still at ground level away from the foundation, and then loaded the debris into dump trucks and hauled it away. A small crane was hoisting the biggest of the burned timbers from the cellar.

“How much water is in there?” I asked Connor.

“It’s dry. There are probably two or more drains like the other houses have. The water from the drains runs into the creek,” he explained. God, but I felt like an idiot. If there had been water in the cellar, the tunnel to the Jefferson place would have shown signs of having been flooded.

Once they cleared the big stuff, the backhoe began scooping out the rest. “Relax, Harry knows what he’s doing.” Connor assured me after watching me flinch each time the big bucket dipped into the cellar and started scooping up debris.

I saw the remains of an ancient and burned washer and dryer being scooped out. I also saw several snakes slithering from pile to pile trying to escape each time their current hiding place was disturbed. Several snakes writhed out of the big scoop while it was in midair, only to die from a gunshot almost as soon as they hit the ground.

I was sure there were more that hadn’t escaped the scoop and were loose inside the dump truck. Finally, there was nowhere left for the snakes to hide, although most had been scooped out with the debris. The guys picked off the dangerous ones they could see and stirred the remaining ash and rubbish around with long fiberglass poles.

Finally, a ladder was lowered into the cellar and one of the men climbed down. Despite the outfit he was wearing and the fact that he didn’t seem nervous at all, I was nervous for him. He wore what looked like waders that fishermen use, held in place by heavy-duty suspenders. The difference was that these were made of chain mail. The waders reached above his navel. Beneath that, Connor said that he wore a pair of pants that consisted of the tough hide from a boar glued onto two thicknesses of boiled leather.

The guy walked stiff legged because he couldn’t bend his knees. Using a wide shovel like a snow shovel, he began scooping everything towards the east wall. He only encountered six more snakes. Only. Two he scooped up in the shovel, tossing them over the lip of the cellar. Three slithered away from him to die from rifle fire. Often, two men shot at the same time. I was impressed that they made sure of their angles so the shots or ricochets wouldn’t hit the guy in the cellar. It was obvious that they’d done this before.

The last snake struck at him but couldn’t bite through his protective gear. He used the shovel to flick it off, and one of the shooters ended that threat. An hour after he began, he had scooped the remaining debris so it was along the east wall. Two more men went down to help shovel it into the backhoe’s gaping maw. They sprayed a CO2 fire extinguisher down each of the three floor drains to deter any snakes that might be down there and covered the drains with a heavy-duty steel screen.

Now it was my turn to go into the cellar, and I was shaking. Using my favorite bolt cutters, I cut the two padlocks on the steel bars holding the iron door to the west tunnel closed. The bars reminded me of the giant wooden crossbeams used in ancient times to help prevent city or castle gates from being breached. I already knew what was behind the iron door to the north. I was surprised to see an iron door on the south wall and wondered if the tunnel to the gang house had originally been planned to connect with it.

The men in the cellar with me were ready. They set up and turned on a bank of halogen lights to illuminate the tunnel once we opened the door so we could see if there were more snakes inside. One man held a four-foot-by-eight-foot piece of plywood so it was against the cellar wall. The other end would be held firmly against the edge of the iron door to keep snakes from escaping as I opened the door. Two men were ready with fully loaded shotguns, while a third had his rifle at the ready.

Steeling myself and taking a deep breath I wondered just how stupid it was to open this door as I began tugging. Naturally, nothing happened. The hinges were rusted enough that there was no way I or any dozen men were going to pull it open.

Connor lowered a heavy cable to us. We secured it around two of the now empty brackets that had originally held the iron beams in place and started using a come-along to pull the door open. Finally, with a loud squeal and groan of protest, the door began opening. Two of us butted heads as we all leaned forward simultaneously to see what was inside.

It took a couple seconds for the door to open far enough for us to see any distance into the tunnel. Once I could see about fifty feet, I knew my theory was right. This tunnel quickly widened to almost twenty feet wide. Along the right wall, first one still, and then another, and another came into view. Holy smokes! Mr. Reese had a full-scale distillery in the tunnel! At least there were no snakes in the tunnel. The door had been tight enough to keep them out. The guy with the heavy pants entered first, carrying a CO2 fire extinguisher in case the snakes had retreated deeper into the tunnel.

Twelve locked cells along the left side of the tunnel each held a skeleton. These cells were much larger than the ones at the gang house. They had locked iron doors barred shut the same as the one leading into this tunnel. The doors were a foot wider than the ones in the gang house. Inside each cell were woodworking tools, wood, finished barrel staves, and partially completed barrels. Evidently, Mr. Reese had a group of involuntary workers making barrels for his hooch. I guessed that he had several illegal immigrants that he had lured down here with the promise of a job.

I went out into the cellar and called the house, asking them to send Sonja and Martine, and to call the sheriff. We needed the coroner for the twelve skeletons.

There was no sign of fire damage in the tunnel, so the fire had been limited to the house and basement. That meant these prisoners either died from asphyxia when the fire pulled all the oxygen from the tunnel, or from starvation. I hoped it wasn’t the latter.

Wiring for electricity and bare light bulbs ran the length of the thousand-foot tunnel, as well as into each cell. Evidently, the men were expected to produce barrels while being held captive inside their cells. Aside from a workbench and a sturdy wood chair, each cell had a rusty metal bed frame with the remnants of a thin cotton-filled mattress on it. They also held a small table that I assumed was to eat on, and what I realized was a thunder pot.

We eventually found a drain in the tunnel that had probably been used to dump the thunder pots, as well as the remnants when a batch of moonshine was done. The leftover pulp would have been fed to hogs or dairy cattle. We also realized that the mess on the tables was the remains of the last meal these people had, so they didn’t die of starvation. It looked like the food had molded, the mold turned to slime, and had finally dried over the intervening decades.

In six places in the tunnel, we found vents with fans. Later we found that two vents came up in the old well house. Two more came up in the barn, and two were disguised to look like vent pipes for the house. One ran underground for a hundred feet to reach the house. The vents allowed the air in the tunnel to be exchanged, removing the heat and exhaust from the stills and drawing in more oxygen from the basement. Evidently, the fire had destroyed the source of electricity that ran the fans, and the fire consumed enough of the oxygen in the tunnel to kill the prisoners.

Two very larger rooms on the opposite wall of the tunnel didn’t have locks; one appeared to be a storage room. While the cloth from the bags in the room was mostly rotted away and the grain had molded long ago, I could see piles of moldy corn, rye, barley, and wheat, and a lot of it. Assuming fifty-pound bags, Mr. Reese had more than three thousand pounds of grain in there, along with piles of unidentifiable things. An old rusty electric grain mill that had been used to grind the grain sat in the corner. There were also twenty completed white oak barrels that had the inside charred. Whatever this guy was making, it wasn’t moonshine like any I’d ever heard about. Moonshine was usually all pure corn, and wasn’t stored in charred white oak barrels.

The other cell looked a bit like a blacksmith shop, with hundreds of corroded and rusty metal hoops hanging on racks on one wall. One of the men said that the hoops were for making barrels.

All four female agents arrived to see what we found. Martine agreed that the prisoners had died from a lack of oxygen. Had they been starving, they would have used their tools to try chipping away enough limestone to break the doors open so they could escape. Sonja said that Mr. Reese was making whiskey, instead of or in addition to the moonshine. There were sixty stills in the tunnel, each capable of holding fifty gallons. How much finished alcohol the fifty-gallon stills produced, I had no idea, but sixty stills probably turned out a lot. I wondered how he had time to farm while tending all those stills.

Temporarily satisfied with our exploration of this tunnel, we turned to the final unknown door, the southern one. Although not locked and barred like the other one, it too screamed in protest as we used the cable and come-along to open it. Again, we found no snakes. We did find the rusted and corroded locks and the steel bars inside the tunnel, along with two more skeletons.