Home Coming (The Survivalist Book 10) A. American (read after .txt) 📖

been around as long as I have, you pick up on a couple of things.”

Mike came strolling up with a cheesy grin on his face. Looking at Janet, he asked, “Well, to what do you owe the pleasure of meeting me?” He lowered his glasses and made a show of looking her up and down.

Janet laughed. “Nice try, Sport. But high school was a long time ago.”

“Not for you. Couldn’t have been. Last year, tops.” Mike replied with a big smile.

“Teddy!” Sarge barked. “Get his ass out of here. The grownups are talking.”

Ted grabbed Mike by the back of his shirt. “Come on, Mikey. We got shit to do.”

“Alright, I’ll see you later,” Mike replied with a wink.

Janet looked past him to Ted and said, “Thank you.”

Ted shrugged, “No big deal. Every animal needs a handler.” He tugged on Mike’s shirt again and said, “Come on, Milo.”

Janet laughed, and Mike looked over his shoulder, “Who’s Milo?”

“Planet of the Apes, sweetie,” Janet replied.

“What?” Mike asked.

Ted pulled him away, saying, “Come on, let’s get you a banana.”

Mike’s mind switched quickly, “You got a banana?”

“Now that the wildlife is gone,” Sarge said, “let’s get down to business. You got a couple of heifers in there for us?”

Janet folded her arms and replied, “You got some hogs and diesel for me?”

Sarge turned and pointed down the road at the tanker. “There’s the diesel. The hogs are in a pen not far from here.”

She clapped her hands, “Great! Where do you want the beeves?”

Thad rode up on a four-wheeler and Sarge pointed at him, “There’s your man. He’ll lead you to the pasture where you can unload them.”

“Alright, let’s go.”

We rode down the road to the pasture where Thad opened the gate and the truck pulled through. While they were getting the cows unloaded, I took a minute to ride the fence. It hadn’t been checked and I didn’t want our new livestock getting away from us. Which made me think about someone stealing them, or worse, shooting one and taking only what they could carry and leaving the rest to rot. We’d have to keep an eye on them.

I didn’t find any breaks in the fence and by the time I got back, the cows were out and already mowing the lawn. Thad smiled when I pulled up, “Find any breaks in the fence?”

“No. Looks good.”

“Neither did I.”

I laughed, “Should have known you would have already done it.”

We left the cows to graze and headed back down the road to get the diesel. One of Janet’s hands got in the trailer and Thad passed the hose through to him. As the tank filled, we talked with Janet.

“Why don’t you all come over tomorrow afternoon,” Janet said. “We’ve got a swimming hole at the house if anyone wants to cool off. And there will be plenty of beef.”

“Kay is going to make buns for the burgers,” I offered.

“That sounds just fine,” Sarge replied. “I’m looking forward to meeting your daddy.”

Janet smiled, “You’ll like him, I think. You two should get along just fine. He’s been the force that held us all together during all this. But it’s taken a toll on him.”

“It’s taken a toll on all of us,” Sarge replied.

“Indeed,” I added.

Her mood brightening, Janet said, “All the more reason to get together. I’ll take any chance to smile now. We’ve been pretty isolated since things changed. We were basically self-sufficient and didn’t need to go to town.”

“Did you ever go?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I didn’t. But a couple of the hands went in from time to time just to see what was going on.”

“Tank’s full,” Thad said as he hung up the hose. I introduced Thad to Janet as he walked over.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she replied as she shook his hand.

“Good to meet you. You ready to go load some hogs?”

“Oh yes. I’m really looking forward to some breakfast sausage and a nice fat porkchop!”

Sarge laughed, “Sounds like you want some pig meat as bad as I want some beef!”

“You always miss what you don’t have,” she replied.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Thad added.

Thad and I walked over to the pig pen as one of Janet’s men drove the truck over. Seeing people, the pigs came running. Thad had already prepared some feed for them, more swamp cabbage and scraps from the kitchen. Using a couple of fence panels, we sectioned off the small gate the trailer backed up to. Getting in, Thad and I worked together to get the pigs sorted, so only the ones we wanted to load were inside the new makeshift pen. It required a lot of kicking, prodding and pushing, but we finally got it done. Of course, there was a lot of advice from those gathered around and watching.

By the time they were loaded, we were both breathing hard and laughing, as were all those gathered to watch. Once we had only the ones we wanted in the little pen, Thad walked into the stock trailer and dumped out the feed he’d prepared. I threw open the gate and the hogs rushed into the trailer. Thad swung the door shut and they were in.

“Hell, that was easy,” Sarge said when the gate banged shut.

I wiped the sweat running down my nose with the back of my hand and replied, “It is easy when all you’re doing is holding down that fence post.”

“I got my job and you got yours,” the old man replied.

Janet laughed and pointed at the hand that drove the truck, “You all sound like these guys.”

He shrugged, “Just the way it is, I reckon.”

I held my hand out, “I’m Morgan.”

“Travis,” he replied as he shook it.

“We’re going to head back,” Janet said. “I want to get these pigs home and into their pen before anything happens to them.”

“I hope you have good fences,” Thad said with a big smile. “We had to put in a hot wire to keep them in.”

“Oh, we have a pen,” Travis replied. “Been working on it