Yosemite

Chapter 5

I see a pow on the other side of the river, and it's a hybrid: part cow, part pig and probably a few other animals in its genetic makeup. The first time I notice them are a few weeks earlier. The terraforming starts just a month earlier, and it gives birth to the pows according to the Votanis Collective. In just a matter of weeks, the animals are everywhere with their white and black spots. The residents who live approximately three miles down the street have a land full of pows, and one of their animals roams into my area. It's good for me because I'm thinking it's going to feed my family if it doesn't find its way back down the road. I hear a broadcast put out by the EMC about the pows, and they claim it's best to kill the things in the wild because they are an invasive species that will destroy the area, but I don't listen. It's sitting on the other side of the river minding its own business, and I don't think anything else about it.

The Earth Military Coalition or EMC is in full force, but a rumor permeates throughout the west that they might form into the Earth Republic. The EMC in the old days is a subset underneath the Earth Republic, and it always exists within the Earth Republic; but when war is declared, the EMC takes control during war. If the Earth Republic takes over, it means we're in a time of peace. The Earth Republic is civilian ruled, and I think the military should always be under the thumb of civilian rulers. This is the reason I often refer to the EMC as the ER. With the pacifist movement spreading across the world, I expect the Earth Republic to take the lead into guiding the world into a new era.

"Ion help me with the tent," I say, "It will be dark soon." It doesn't take us long to put the tent back in place. We take the time to hammer the stakes deep into the ground, and everything seems sturdy. The girls sit at the picnic table, and Naria points at the pow. She wears her blue bathing suit with the unicorn on the front of it. Rory, on the other hand, wears a two piece, white bathing suit that looks like her bra and panties. It looks better than her bra and panties, but it looks just like her bra and panties.

"Your bathing suit looks like your bra and panties, Rory," I say.

"I likes what I like," she replies.

"I tried to buy her the red two piece, but she wasn't having it," Rota says.

"That thing just eats and eats and eats," Naria says. She's looking at the pow across the way. "Bet they taste good."

Rota turns the fish, and prepares plates for everybody, and then she says, "Girls. The fish has bones, so be careful."

"That's how we eat them," Naria says, "We pick at it with our hands."

"I don't care," Rory says, "I'm starving. I'll eat that pow right now I'm so hungry. Just take a chunk out of its back."

I look over at the pow, and I have a scowl on my face because I think about the Castithan at the Bazaar. I envision him attacking us in our sleep, and I don't know why I'm so paranoid.

"What's wrong?" Ion asks.

I guide him towards the new mountain, and say, "I want you armed with my combat shotgun."

"Rota will be mad," he says in a whisper, "But I don't mind."

"Just in case trouble comes," I say, "I have a bad vibe."

I walk over to the roller, and pull the weapon from underneath my seat. It has a sling on it. I demonstrate how to load the weapon, unload the weapon, and fire the weapon. "Keep these shells in your pocket until you're prepared to use it." I place a shell in the rifle, and then cock it. "It's ready to fire. Just point and shoot, but not now." I unload the round. "Stick these in your pocket. Sling it with the barrel down."

I lean up against the roller, and watch Ion practice with the rifle. He's a natural on the first go around, but he continues to practice with the loading and unloading. He spends about thirty minutes familiarizing himself with the rifle, and then says, "I can't wait to fire it." He slings the rifle with the barrel down, and walks over to the picnic table to eat his fish.

"Why do you have that?" Rota ask. She's angry. I see it in her face, but I'm going to stand my ground on this issue.

"I told him to," I say, "'Cause of the unrest happening all over the place."

"Aren't soldiers putting down their arms?" Rota asks. She grimaces, but I don't pay it any attention.

"Yeah. And crazy people are picking up the guns, and shooting the soldiers," I say.

Ion laughs. Naria covers her mouth, and laughs a little.

Rota slams her hands on the table. Rory jumps. "Derrick Shooty, this is madness."

"Can we not slam the table?" Rory ask. "I'm trying to navigate around these fish bones, and it's taking my full attention."

"Sorry," Rota says.

"I gave him a safety class," I say.

"What about me?" Naria asks, "I want to carry a gun. It's not fair that Ion gets a gun because he's boy."

"We're going to start practicing hand to hand combat in the morning," I say, "An hour a day."

"Finally!" Rory interjects, "Arms are all flabby." She tries to flex, and Ion laughs.

"So skinny," he says.

"You're welcome to participate, Rota," I say.

She gives me an evil stare, and walks into the tent.

"I want a gun," Naria says.

It's now full dark: the moon is overhead, the lightning bugs are out, and the humidity is crazy. I feel icky. The girls are down by the river washing their bodies, and Ion is somewhere near the new mountain. It feels good to have some time to myself. Rota hasn't talked much since dinner, but she feels left out of the activities. The kids want to learn hand to hand combat and weapons, but not Rota. She lives in her fantasy world, and I think it's causing a serious rift in our relationship. Naria's being pushy about carrying a gun too, but I'm saying no for now. She's eager to learn, but Rota is adamant about not letting her near one. I think she'll change her mind in time, but for now, I will just say no to her. I hear Ion screaming from about two hundred yards away, and then he fires his shotgun twice.

"Hellbug!" He screams, "It ate a pow."

I open the trunk to my roller, and grab a Volge pistol. I run up the hill, and I see the largest creature I have ever seen in my life. It's a huge red lobster like creature, and it tries to grab Ion but he rolls out of the way. This hellbug is bigger than a bus, and Ion is loading all his rounds into it, but it doesn't seem to hurt it. I raise up my weapon, and fire several shots into its rear end, and its legs give out from under it. When it tries to stand up, I shoot its legs off, and it screams so loud that I thought my ears would bleed. Ion shoots it in the mouth, and it dies.

We carry the pinchers back to the camp, and crack them under a low level light emanating from the roller. The girls are back at the camp, and they're fascinated by how much meat we have. The pincher meat is pure white meat that has a texture somewhere between chicken and fish meat. It's tender. I put some salt on it, and fry it up on the grill. It's going to take a couple of hours to cook the huge chunk I have, but it's worth it. Ion, Rory, and I take turns flipping it, and Naria falls asleep under the picnic table.

It's almost ten o'clock, and I have the meat in several containers, and I throw the rest in the trash. It's more than enough for breakfast and lunch the next day, and I think it's worth it. Ion sleeps outside of the tent on the picnic table, and I grab Naria, and bring her into the tent. I roll up the backside of the tent because I want my eyes on anything that might descend down that mountain. I nudge up against Rota, and try to remove her pants, but she's not having.

"Oh, hell no," she says. She looks back at me for a second. She's pouting. "You're cut off for awhile."

"Why?" I ask.

"'Cause you let Ion carry that damn gun," she says.

"Well. It is what it is," I say.

"Damn right. So keep it in your pants," she says.

****The Next Morning****

We descend down the hill to the quaint spot by the river; it's all of us except for Rota; she stays near the campsite, and prepares the meal. Across the river three pows are grazing in the grass, and I wonder if the family that lives down the road will come by for their animals. I'm thinking about killing one of them, and feeding it to my family.

Naria looks over at the animal, and says, "Didn't the radio say something about killing those things."

"It's no big deal," Ion says, "It's just a whatever it is."

"Let's get started," I say. The kids stand side by side, and I say, "Bow Stance." They start with the right leg back behind the left, and everytime I count, they kick. We do this ten times on each leg. Naria has naturally, good kicks that are hard and fast.

I demonstrate how to perform a round kick, and Naria does it perfectly on the first try. Ion and Rory struggle with the snap, and I have to make them understand that it's okay not to get it the first time. Each move that I teach them, I realize that it's not the move itself that causes them to struggle. It's beating each other to see who learns it the fastest.

I stand in front of them demonstrating the Open Form: upright stance, hands by my side, facing south, and looking naturally. My feet are parallel, shoulder length apart, and I distribute my weight equally on both feet. In a flowing, natural motion, I raise my arms with my elbows slightly bent, and then after I achieve that goal, I bend my knees with my palms facing the ground.

"This is the first movement," I say, "It looks simple, but it's important that you guys get the form correct."

"Okay," Ion says.

"Okay. You guys line up beside me, and we'll try this together."

We spend the next hour working on the Open Form, and all the kids practice hard to perfect it. Of course they don't perfect it in just one hour, but they are understanding how to make it look naturally.

Rota calls for us to eat, and Ion tries to run away before being dismissed, and I have to call him back. "I must dismiss you first." We bow to each other, and then I say, "Dismissed!" We all run up the hill, and the kids race each other to the picnic table. They're extremely competitive on everything, including who eats the fastest.

After breakfast, Ion scuttles down the road with his shotgun, and I have no idea what he's doing. I wander behind the mountain where all the discarded EMC equipment sits, and look at the old refrigerators that the soldiers place against the back fence. There are about four huge white refrigerators with about fifty small brown ones. They don't look like they're in bad condition, and all the plugins are attached. I open one of the refrigerators, and look it over, but when I close it, I jump in fear because a pow stands right in front of me. I didn't even see it creep up on me.

I search around the area for some kind of cart or a dolly, and I see a sea of old, beat-up shipping containers. It amazes me how much discarded equipment the military throws away. The soldiers leave so much equipment behind that it's crazy. Nobody says anything that the military buries a billion dollars of equipment, and waste the money of the people. I find a small dolly on the far end of the junkyard with eight porta-potties , and it's in pretty good shape. I grab one of those large refrigerators, carry over to my camp area, and set it in the tent. I hear it running and I hope we can store food in it. I return to the junkyard, and bring two of the porta-potties over to the area, and Rory is ecstatic. I park the porta-potties about three hundred feet from the tent, and everybody must carry a weapon with them when using the bathroom. It becomes the law of the family because the hellbugs are dangerous and elusive; they can strike at anytime during the day.

"This is like paradise," Rory says with a huge smile on her face. I think for a moment, and she has never been in a bathroom with plumbing. She's only known portable bathrooms. "They're green."

"Military grade," I say, "We'll have to have a bathroom cleaning schedule."

"Okay," Rory says, "Dail? Weekly?"

"Probably daily," I say.

Finally, Ion heads home around ten o'clock in the morning with three squirrels and two rabbits, and when Rota sees them, she cleans them, and throws them on the grill. I take him behind the mountain with all the military equipment, and look at miles and miles of fencing. There is so much fencing on the compound that I could fence in our entire area, and that's exactly what I plan on doing.

"Probably should," Ion says, "I counted fourteen pows along the road." He looks down the street. "The family down the road has a yard full of them."

***Three Months Later****

I take Rota to Doctor Meh Yewll because she's now seven months pregnant, and I worry a lot about the safety of our baby, and her mental state. I've spent plenty of time with the kids on practicing hand to hand combat and weapons training, and Rota continues to complain about it. She's carrying a boy, and I want to name him Radon Shooty, but she isn't keen on the name. She wants a pure Irathient name, but she never puts one on the table.

Ion and Naira ask me if I will find them a new home when the child comes, and it's the craziest thing I ever heard. At first, I didn't understand how much pain they experience, but it soon dawned on me. I should have known something was wrong when he lazily went through his morning martial arts training. I rarely ever have to raise my voice with the children, but Ion made me raise my voice this morning because he wouldn't act right. I ask Rory if she spreads that nastiness, and she says she did, but she is only joking. Ion takes it personally, and he goes off in the woods to cry about it. Naria takes it the hardest, but she's more open about it than Ion.

"Why take care of me just to leave me in the woods?" She says, "You could have just left me to die in the ark."

"Naria! That's crazy talk," I say, "You're my kids, and you aren't going anywhere."

"Then why haven't you adopted us like Rory?" She asks, "Why isn't my name Naria Shooty?"

"You want my name?" I ask.

"Why not?" She asks, "Ion and I talk about this all the time."

"When were you going to tell me?" I ask.

"I just thought you would know," she says.

"I will make it happen," I say, "'Cause I want us to be official."

Ion stays in the woods for too long, and I grab a gun, and go after him. The woods are thick, and some new plants that I first saw about a month ago are human eaters. They look like large dandelions, but approximately twenty feet across and thirty feet wide. I call them Man Eaters because I see one of them eat a pow with no problem. I have an electric fence surrounding the compound to keep out the hellbugs, and they swarm it at least once a week. I see over one thousand pows roaming the area, and I shoot a few, but it does nothing to the population size. Ion shoots a few when he can't lure in hellbugs for the kill. The pows grow in numbers almost daily. Ion usually waits for the swarm of hellbugs, and kills a few, skins them for the meat, and sells hellbug sandwiches in the Bazaar. If he misses the swarm, he'll kill a few pows, and make sandwiches out of that. It's a nice business that earns the kids plenty of script for clothes and gadgets. I know he's beyond the mountains in the field with all the broken machinery: trucks, forklifts, front loaders, and so on. It's a junkyard for old equipment and military shipping containers. There's probably a thousand, sturdy shipping containers in the field, and Ion likes to hang out there when he's upset with me. I push some of the pows out of the way that roam the yard.

I think about grabbing a few of the shipping containers all the time, and turning them into a house because they can withstand high winds. The harsh conditions tear at the tent, and I'm patching it constantly. Rota sews me patches on a regular basis out of deer hides, but the strong winds are merciless, and it rains constantly. I'm afraid the fall will bring hellacious winds, over two hundred mile per hour, and obliterate our shelter, and if that happens, I'm completely out of luck. There isn't much privacy with the tent, even with the partition, and Rory feels that she's becoming a woman, and doesn't want Ion seeing her naked. I find that funny because she won't hesitate taking off her clothes, jumping in the river, and trying to cool off, and even though I complain, she doesn't care. I purchase all the kids bathing suits, but Rory only wants white two piece bathing suits that look like her bra and panties. I think she does it to mess with me.

I complain when Ion first suggests he wants to sell hellbug and pow meat in the Bazaar, and to be honest, I didn't thoroughly think about it until I massage Rota's backside. We scrounge around in the junkyard, and find a good, almost new army stove for the field. It's fueled by diesel fuel, and one day when Ion is cleaning a hellbug, I notice its byproduct is pure diesel fuel. It's a bag that lies in the center of the bug, and the trick to good meat is never cutting into the bag. Once the bag is removed, I pour the contents through a strainer, so I get the pure fuel and none of the other contents. I use the fuel for my roller and for the stove. We buy several bags of flour and yeast a week to bake the bread, and when the bread is fresh, we make a lot of money at the Bazaar. Rota knows how to make wheat bread, white bread, tortillas, flat bread, pizza crust, and so on. I encourage her to teach Rory and Naria how to bake the bread, and Rory complains that Ion doesn't have to make the bread, so I have Ion make bread too, and he's better than Rory.

"Great. Who knew bread was my weakness?" Naria asks.

When we make all the bread, we store it in the vehicle until we travel into town later on in the day. The kids dart to the river when we finish cooking all the food, and play for about forty minutes in the water. It's like clockwork. I try to slip into Rota while the kids play in the river, but she is hesitant every time, but she knows what I want. I can't predict when the kids decide to come back to the tent for something, and there's no way to keep them out. I roll her to the side because she's seven months pregnant, and I pound her from behind, and she moans right after my grunts. Her head sticks out of the tent, so she can keep an eye out for the kids. I'm pounding her and the baby is kicking her. It's sneaky sex. It's obligatory sex, and I'm the only one who leaves satisfied. She pulls up her panties, and falls asleep, but I know she doesn't enjoy it on the same level as me. And the only reason she isn't enjoying it is because she wants a bed, a house, a place to live like decent people.

Ion sits in the heavy loader with his head on the steering wheel, and he's crying. His eyes are red, and he's upset. "Where will I go?" I can see the hurt and fear in his eyes, and I can barely believe I'm having this conversation. I have never thought about giving up my kids; it's something that I never imagined once. I haven't ever had a dream of this happening.

"You're my son," I say, "You're my family, and I don't want you ever to forget that."

"But Rory says when the baby comes, we have to go," he says.

"She's teasing," I say, "That's not how it works. You're my son. You'll always be my family, and soon I will make it official."

I hop in the loader, and look around for any keys. I check the visors, and find some gold keys, and make an attempt to start the loader. It doesn't have any power at all. I place the keys back in the visor, and climb out of the machine. Ion follows me down, and he is carrying his shotgun like I taught him.

"What are you doing?" He asks.

"I bet we can fix at least one of these machines," I say, "We can move those containers to our area."

I walk over to an olive grab skytrak, and it's large. I climb inside, and search for the keys. I find some in the glove compartment, and try to turn on the machine. The machine doesn't look like it's in bad shape at all. The lights come on in the cab, and I actually think the machine functions. The engine turns over like it's going to start, and then it starts up, and I rev up the engine. The last time I drive one of these machines is in Yosemite when I built my last house.

"Get up here, Ion," I say.

He climbs into the cab, and we pick up two shipping containers, and they're the large containers exactly forty feet long each. It takes about twenty minutes to place them near the tent, but I have a lot of work to do to them. When I take Ion and the girls to the Bazaar later on in the day, I find a steel cutting saw at one of the appliance shops. I purchase several bed like cushions for Rota and the kids. She complains about the ground being too hard, and that she needs something soft underneath her. I tell the kids that I will be back later on in the day, and I leave them to make their money. I work on the containers all day, and place some paneling on the inside and outside of one of the containers. In a few hours, the thing is almost unrecognizable. It isn't as nice as my container house in Yosemite, but it's better than the tent. I slide the refrigerator into the container, and it fits nicely in the far back corner. I use the saw to cut out a doorway, and when I return back to the Bazaar, I plan on buying a door for it. Once I have the inside fixed, I face the doorway towards the river. I cut out several squares for windows, and fix it so a glass will fit in it. When I pick the kids up at the Bazaar, I purchase some fiber glass for the windows, and install them.

Ion and I walk over to the junkyard, and stumble across a gigantic air conditioner; it's a twenty-two thousand BTU machine with all the amenities, and it appears to be in good condition. The reason a lot of the stuff is in the junkyard is because it's surplus. The EMC occupies the area earlier in the year, but has to leave in a hurry, and left their equipment. I cut out a space in the rear of the container, and place the air conditioner in it, and fasten it in tightly. I pull an extension cord out of my equipment, and plug it into the pole, and then plug in the air conditioner. I bury the cord, so we won't trip over it. It turns on, and I set the setting to about fifty degrees. I don't think it'll reach fifty degrees because it's about one hundred and seven degrees right now, and Rota is in the tent sleeping. It runs for about twenty minutes, and the kids head to the river for a swim, and we're going to have some of the leftover sandwiches they didn't sell for dinner. Naria tells me that she left me the biggest piece, but I think she did that because she feels I'm going to throw them away. I don't understand their reasoning at all. I can't imagine giving them up, and I am going to talk to Rory about saying stuff like that, even in jest.

Suddenly, I hear the air conditioner turn off, and I automatically think it's broken. I open the door, and walk into the container, and it's so cold that I can barely stand it. I see my breath, and immediately turn the air up to eighty degrees. I think eighty is a good number. If the kids try to sleep in fifty degree weather, they might die. I might die. I move the bed like pads into the container, and they're nice. The air is still cooler than eighty degrees, and the air conditioner has been off for over an hour. Rota and the kids are at the picnic table eating their sandwiches, and I'm still messing with the door.

"That's good enough, Daddy," Rory says, "I already think it's better than the tent."

Rota says, "Come eat, Derrick." She walks over to me, and hands me my sandwich, and it does have more meat. "These kids spoil you."

"I know," I say.

Rota walks into the container, and screams, "Oh my god!"

"What?" I ask.

"It's so cold," she says, "It's like paradise."

Ion walks into the container, and says, "It's freezing."

I fix the other container up over the next few weeks, and keep adding to the main container. The kids stay in the second container, and give Rota and I our privacy in the main one. Once she hit eight months, Doctor Meh Yewll told us to stop having sex until after the birth of the baby. I take the Calamine lotion, and spread it all over her stomach to minimize the stretch marks. I pull off her clothes, and rub lotion all over her body, and she looks picture perfect in the dim light.

The baby comes quickly, and unexpectedly from what Doctor Meh Yewll believes. It comes two weeks early, but it is a healthy baby, and he's brown with orange hair.

"He's beautiful," Rota says, "He's a Shooty. Raden Shooty."

I walk over to the Votanis Collective, and fill out paperwork on Ion and Naria, and in a matter of days, they recognize them as my children. Ion Shooty and Naria Shooty are officially my kids, and it's a happy time for the entire family. And after they take my last name, I no longer hear them lamenting about me giving them away.

The baby is loud at night because he cries often. Rota spends so much time feeding the kid that she barely has time for me. I play with her a bit, but she's too tired, and tells me I can do whatever I want as long as she can sleep. I spoon with her for awhile, and wake up the next morning with her riding me hard. I want sex to be impulsive, but I think she believes it's compulsory, a mandatory event to keep me please. I'm good with whacking off in the corner, but she wants to relieve me instead of me relieving myself.

Later she sits on the picnic table, and feeds Radon, and Naria braids her hair. For the last two weeks, Rota's hair has been out of control, and it's because she hasn't groomed in awhile. Her pubic hairs are thicker than the forest, and she has bags underneath her eyes. It takes Naria about thirty minutes to braid Rota's hair, and it looks nice. She uses some hair oil to give her fiery red hair a natural flavor. It's October. Rory hasn't been in school since January, and Ion and Naria haven't been in school at all. I realize that I have to do something because they need school, and Ion can't spend all day killing things. The pows are all over the place, and I hear about a cholera outbreak up north, and it kills over one hundred people. I decide to move three more containers directly in front of the mountain, and I turn it into a slaughterhouse. There's a medium size, white reefer truck that I use it to sell pow meat to local businesses. One pow sells for a little over three hundred script, and I sell almost ten a day. Ion and I kill them, clean them, and hang them up in the truck with the forklift. After one month of doing this, I hire four Iraths who increase the production, and now I'm making some good money.

"I'm going to town," I say. I sit next to Rota at the picnic table, and put my right hand on her legs. She's lost a lot of the baby weight, and her face is thinner.

"For what?" Rota asks.

"School. These kids need to be in school," I say, "It's important."

"That's true," she says, "There has to be something around here."

"Ion!" I say.

"Yes," he says.

"Keep the family safe," I say, "I have to go into town."

I see Irocuz in the Bazaar, and he sits with his son, Tommy, and they sell hellbug meat sandwiches all day. Tommy is approximately six or seven, and he spends most of his time reading or doing school work. Irocuz talks to me every now and again, but it isn't a long conversations because he can't stand being around me for too long. He tolerates my presence when Ion and Naria are with me because he wants my Irathient children seeing positive images of an Irathient male. I know this because he tells me all the time that I better raise my Irathient kids to love themselves. Iroza sits in the rear of the booth, and helps Tommy with his school work, and that's when I walk up to Irocuz.

"What you want, man?" Irocuz asks.

"What's the school situation around here?" I ask. I look around for a second. "I've been here for almost a year, and my kids need to be in school."

"Not much," he says, "Von Bach Industries plans to build a school in the next two years down the street."

"That's too long," I say.

"Home school is your best bet," he says.

I thank Irocuz for his help, but he kind of shrugs his shoulders, and I walk away. I look around the Bazaar, and a young woman sells walkie talkies for about fifty scripts, and they have a range of thirty miles. The walkies are solid black with the Bach Industries symbol on it. I had heard a lot of good things about Bach's products, so I purchased three sets of them. I think it's a good investment because Ion is always all over the place, and I want him to check in with me on a regular basis. It's good to have when he's working in the slaughterhouse and loading the trucks. It's a time consuming job, but he's good at it. I'm not trying to micromanage his time, but he's always on the hunt, and if he slips up with a hellbug, he will become the hunted.

When I arrive at the house, Rory and Ion are arguing, and Rota separates them. She's trying to feed the baby, but the kids are messing with her vibe.

"You're just mad because you have a skinny butt," Ion says.

"That's not nice, Ion," I say, "No more talking like that, okay?"

"Yes, sir," he says.

I hand walkies to all the kids and Rota, and they turn them on immediately. "We'll be on channel twelve."

"Cool," Rory says, "Are they waterproof?"

"No. Don't get them wet," I say, "But if you're going to leave the area…"

"Okay," Ion says.

"It's a safety thing," I say.

Rota looks at her walkie for a second, and says, "What's the reach?"

"'Bout twenty miles," I say, "So, when the kids are working the Bazaar."

"Good idea," Rota says.

"Ion, your radio handle is Hunter," I say.

"Hunter? Cool," he says.

Naria and Rory leave their walkies in their rooms, and walk down to the river for a swim. Their bathing suits are already worn because all they do is swim. Ion grabs his bow and arrow, and with his shot gun strapped to his back, he heads out the electric gate. I sit on the picnic table, Rota sits between my legs with her back to me, and I'm massaging her back while she feeds the baby. She loses weight on the daily, and I encourage her to eat more food. It's because she's constantly breastfeeding, and needs the extra weight to keep up her strength.

"If we don't reduce the population size of these pows, we're going to be in trouble," I say, "Killing twenty a day isn't causing a dent."

"Maybe we buy more trucks," Rota says, "Ship meat up north."

"Have to hire more workers for that," I say.

"Look at those two crazy girls," Rota says. The baby is feeding, and it looks completely natural. Her shirt is unbutton, and her breast are hanging freely. "Ion's butt remark hurt Rory."

Rory dives into the water, swims to the other side, hops out of the water, and does twenty squats. Naria is doing the same thing, but she isn't as fast as Rory.

"Well, kids are cruel," I say.

"You're a man," she says, "You don't understand."

I rub her shoulders and back, and she leans back, and enjoys the attention. "Marriage."

"Aren't we already common law?" She ask.

"But under what government?" I ask.

"It's just a paper," she says, "It can't measure my feelings for you."

Rota stands up, places the baby in the house, and waits for him to go to sleep. I gather some wood for the barbeque pit, and start the fire. It's around five o'clock in the evening, and I haven't heard from Ion in a few hours. I light the fire, and let the grill heat up. I have several hellbug claw meat steaks, and I need to cook them before they go bad. Rota places the meat on the grill, and then kisses me on the cheek.

Naria finds some potatoes growing wild on the other side of the river, and she pulls about twenty out of the ground. She screams for me, and I run down the hill like she's in trouble. She holds up the potato, and I pull off my clothes, and dive into the water. I swim across, and we start pulling up the potatoes. There are blackberries over there too, but they aren't ripe. There's several green apple trees with huge, perfectly round apples, and we return for some of those. We clean them together in the river, and now Rota places a few of them on the grill. It feels good to be a family, and I will not trade that feeling for anything. I grab a walkie, and call Ion, and he says he's approximately three miles down the road at a friend's house.

Immediately, I hop into my roller, drive down the street, and it's an Irathient couple with a small girl child about ten-years-old. The kids are outside of the house, and the two adults wear breezy like clothes with a lot of trinkets. They almost look like hippies.

"Daddy," Ion says, "Meet Rynn."

I wave. "It's time to come and eat."

"My name is Ida Inola," the woman says with her right hand extended. Her husband sits on the porch, and seems unassuming in his appearance. He walks off the porch, and stands directly in front of me.

"I'm I-ron Inola," he says, "Welcome."

I shake her hand, and she immediately snatches it away from me. "You're the Devil, Derrick Shooty!" She backs away from me, and I have a feeling of shame. "Did they hire you to kill us?"

"You're Derrick Shooty?" I-ron asks.

"Yes. I'm Ion's father," I say, "I would never hurt you or your family, I-ron."

"Then what happen in Olmec, Mexico?" Ida asks. "We're a peaceful people."

"It was a terrible situation," I say. Ion stands by my side and hugs me. "And one day I'll tell the world what happen, but I'm not here to harm you and yours."

"I don't think your son should come around here," she says, "I'm just uncomfortable with your presences."

"Why not?" Ion asks.

"Let them be friends?" I ask. "Don't judge my humanity by my military record."

"My husband and I will think about it," she says, "We lost family in Olmec, Mexico. Please understand our apprehension."

"Oshea nia," I say. It translates to "I'm sorry."

I-ron turns to me, and says, "Vava wata cronitiki." It translates to "Give us time."

"Soya," I reply. It translates to "Okay."

"Ion, ga ee nay," I say. It translates to "Let's go."

Ion looks over at Rynn, and says, "Rynn, swaya. Soya?"

Rynn waves at him, and smiles.