The Free Republic of Texas 2015 (16 page)

When they asked us guys why in an end of the world situation did we feel the need to stock up on a box car load of beer, our answer?

Well babes, why the box car of hair spray, ya know, sleeping alone ain’t so hard to do, it just getting used to sleeping on the floor that sucks!

We did turn the ladies loose on the food stores and hygiene products to keep us all clean and healthy while we worked on the protection issues.

When we guys got together to discuses Johns plan to buy out half the weapons production of a COM block country he said that he was having trouble getting the quality he wanted and that most of the stuff being imported today was crap.

Jody said he would look into it and left the room to make a call or two, John and I went on putting an ammo order together, he wanted only Wolf Poly coated ammo because the US made stuff was just too high priced and the other stuff on the market was suspect as to age and quality.

He was trying to get a discount on a Simi load to start which were about 40 pallets with a hundred thousand rounds per pallet! That was 4 million rounds!!! But his plan was to have enough to barter or to arm an army if need be. The problem was finding that much in one spot, Jody came back in as we were discussing the need for that much ammo, he said he was good with it and that he had something going on some top of the line Russian AK’s from the best factory the Russians had in their glory days…

I looked at him and he smiled at me, I had a feeling where the call had gone and who was “handling it for us” but I kept quiet on it, he did ask John if 5000AK’s would be enough? Causing John to choke, it seemed like a lot to me too but I had a feeling it would come through without a hitch, he also said he had mentioned ammo too so that was taken care of.

John said while Jody was at it he should have located some belt fed squad weapons and some 50 ma deuces, Jody said he was working on that too…John just handed Jody his long shopping list and said here Boss you handle it.

Over the next few weeks trucks were pulling in daily with loads of goods the ladies were ordering, they were filling up the basements of the mall and more was being moved by the ranch crews to the shelters and tunnels.

All of us in the committee got together and walked thru every stash and checked it for any holes in the inventory, we found none, the ladies were on the ball.

They had everything from A to Z and by the ton! Heirloom seeds by the thousands all sealed in tins, I doubt there was a thing they had forgotten, I could only hope us guys had done as well….

That evening Sally said “We are gonna look pretty silly with all this stuff if nothing ever happens ain’t we? “We all laughed until Bob said well remember Y2K? Sally said yea why? Bob said well ya know Y3K is coming! Sally tossed a pillow at him and the laughter was good and relaxing, I guess it showed how uptight we had all got to be in the past year and several months since we started the project.

The amount of money spent was awesome but at the same time all the businesses we had started were showing a decent profit and were helping pay for the prep goods so it wasn’t all bad, and what would I have been doing with it if Jody hadn’t come along? Not a damn thing, just waiting to die; now I had so much to live for.

At the latest committee meeting Jody said he thought we should build a hidden bunker in the woods where the ever vigilant hunters of the clan would keep a watch on it. the big problem being how to keep things quiet about it, we brainstormed it a while until Bob suggested we look at hiring the guy who did the tunnels from the dorms to the barns, he was already aware that we were prepping for something and had proven he could keep his mouth shut .

Jody called him and he showed up the next day, very happy for work, he said things were getting real bad out there which got a conversation going about other projects on the place, Harry said that if there was enough he would buy a used concrete truck and run it back and forth to the nearby plant and handle the pour himself, closing another door to the public about the ranch, we gave him the nod and he said he’d get back in a few days, in the mean time he had his foreman bring out his backhoe to start the dig.

We walked over the area looking for a way thru the trees that wouldn’t leave big foot prints to the job site and not require dropping trees, the site was accessed from the big pathway into the village area but turned off before it,

Harry’s foreman showed up with the hoe and we watched him move it into the area with not a ripple, after deciding how big we needed it he set to work, from the house back porch we could hardly hear the machine working which was another plus.

When the ladies saw the size of the hole they couldn’t believe we needed anything that big but they hadn’t seen the weapons orders! Also Jody wanted a place big enough for the entire clan to evac to if needed.

Harry showed up a few days later with a big grin on his face, he had found a small mom and pop company who wanted to retire and had two trucks plus a remote batch plant for out of town jobs, the price was right and after looking some more he had found other work for the equipment to help close the gaps in his business, We offered to help front the purchase but Harry said no thanks he had it all done! We love it when a plan comes together.

Harry brought in just one more man to help straw boss the job and the ranch crew pitched in learning as they went, in only two weeks from first dig they had poured the footings and slab all in one pour, the slab looked thick enough to hold up a fleet of tanks! In another week the walls were formed and were ready to pour, Harry had hauled in all the rock and mix needed and the pour was started, the entire ranch came to watch it, the people of the clan were there but most were out of sight if you didn’t know where and how to look, wonderful people and not somebody to trifle with.

As a side note I mentioned to Jody one day that our forest friends seemed to be growing in numbers far beyond any birth rate increases, Jody laughed and said he had been waiting to see if anybody would notice or comment, I told him that I hadn’t until the wedding when the strange beauty walked through the room stopping John in mid denial of wanting a woman in his life, seems the word was out to the rest of the clans in our area that maybe it was time to join together on the ranch as the bad times were coming …..Again.

I asked how many new ones had come in and Jody said he had no idea but Jade said close to a hundred! That made my jaw drop, how could we gain that many people and not know it, Jade laughed and ask me how many of the clan did I see day to day, I had to think a bit and said well, the ones who chose to work out in public and live in the dorms for the most part… She said well then why would you notice more unless there was a gathering?  Jody and Ellen’s wedding took place at night by moon and fire light as had all clan weddings for god knows how long ,so that was why I had not noticed the extra people, but building a house under the earth was just too much for the clan so they all came to watch.

Then it was time to pour the roof on the bunker and that took a lot of work just getting the support beams set and the steel laid in over the plywood which was covered with diesel to make it easier to remove from inside when the roof was set up.

That pour was a big one and took all day and a few hours of night, but It was done and would in a few weeks of curing be ready to be covered over, the main entry door was thru a tunnel from the nearest building and another that opened in the Shamans hut and hidden under the dirt floor but removing a couple of feet of earth and there it was.

About 2 weeks after the pour Harry and his crew started covering the roof slab, using a small dozer they very gently pushed the dirt and used compactors to beat it down tight, with a constant check on the inside it was soon done and the dozer ran back and forth it to further compact it, then the top soil was re-laid and the next day the clan ladies decided it was a great garden spot and soon there would be corn and other things growing over the bunker.

Now we waited for the supplies that would be stored there.

In the mean time the new County Government was working hard to make this a wonderful place to live, with friendly words of advice large community gardens were being planted on vacant lots in the towns and cared for by all who wished to help, the equipment was provided by the county as was the operators, the thought being that all our taxes paid for the stuff so why not let all the people benefit from it, it was truly amazing to see the people of the county come together on the projects being built. Thanks to the money recovered from the hidden accounts of the former crooks there was money for plenty of projects, and with a tiny bit of help from donations for some things, like our donation of all the seeds for the gardens, heirloom of course and several people had been informed about saving seeds, there seemed to be a lot more peppers then we had thought in the area and it wasn’t hard to get them up to speed on sharing their ideas with others.

We also ordered a Simi full of jars and lids for canning, along with a large number of large All American canners, these were sold at cost to those who wanted their own, the rest were to be used in the community canning centers that the prepper ladies were opening up all over the county, folks that had never gardened for whatever reason were coming out in droves to learn, We were really blown away with it all, but so very happy with it.

One project we helped push thru with the county was the need for community “Storm shelters” ( it helps when you have open minds on the commission ) so those projects were in the works, some folks wondered why they were so big and why they had bathrooms and water to them, but were told that by getting civil defense money ( which we didn't touch!! keeping that camel's nose out of the tent) it was required, and when they were built each was going to have large storage rooms to be opened by only a few very trusted people, all members of Jim’s SO dept. and most were going to be built  to house about 100 people without being crushed, only a small trusted few knew that later, by the light of the moon the supplies for those sheltering would be placed in the inner vaults and that there would be weapons and ammo as well as a small medical area in the vault room… we knew we couldn’t protect everybody from a nuke, but from MZBG’s? Or an out of control central government? We hoped so…

It has been hard to plan for the future of the folks here in our little corner of the world without spilling the whole sack of beans, a lot of them would most likely have screamed to the heavens at the idea of it all but we were of the mind set that should have been used on the enviroterrorist, “shut up and sit down, were they going to be required to head for the shelters? Were they going to be required to fight the MZBG’s in the trenches? Nope they can just be Zombie food.

One of the biggest helps we had was dear ol Miss Ellie, she was known by folks from all the surrounding towns and counties and she spread the prepping idea like it was the holy word. And her many friends knew her well enough to know if she was worried they best be and those old gals really got on the butts of their grown kids and grand kids, it seemed every school that had a home ec classes now had even boys signing up. There was a very not so quiet revival going on in not just this county but parts of the surrounding counties as well.

Jody said that one day we would have to come out of the shadows a tiny bit and start talking some about what we saw coming but he wasn’t sure how to do it without drawing too much attention from Washington and the State house that was the last thing we wanted or needed.

But in the mean time we just kept doing what we could and putting open minded people out there to talk up the whole prepping idea. Jim’s entire dept. was involved in the movement, they talked to their friends and advised them that it might be wise to maybe forgo the newest toy of the moment in favor of a new generator or a spare set of new tires for their vehicles, and why buy a new truck when the old one was paid for, common sense being spread like peanut butter, smooth…..

We did avoid trying to get many teachers involved unless they were already of a mind set, too many today were to the left of center and we didn’t need that fight.

But the head of the school board was involved thru the reserve dept and he set about a way to give extra credits for things that were above the usual home ec classes, things like working in a school garden project with the food going to the needy and elderly in the area, the same with raising a calf or rabbits to be made into food for these folks.

It was kinda like a small working peace corps thing with no government involvement, and it was working smooth as glass, the LEO’s all noticed a drop in youth problems, also there was a very popular Police cadet program where the high school students could ride along a few times then decide if they wanted to join the cadets which was a training program that helped a lot of kids find a place to hang out with their peers instead of on the streets, extra credits were given for that also.

We at the ranch could not believe the changes in such a short time, and a lot of it was brought on by Jim’s midnight visit to us which got the ball rolling.

Most of this wasn’t even in our plan, it happened because when the people had the chance to pull control of their local government from the hands of the crooks they really went to work with it, to bad it couldn’t be done on a national or even State level, but we were just glad it happened here because we now had a much better chance of rebuilding when the time came.

At the ranch things were slowing down to a nice pace, we had come so far in a short time, Jody and Ellen took time for their honeymoon, Jade and I spent a lot of time walking the whole place and even camped out a few nights, also we did a lot of shooting, she had really taken to it like she does everything else, full bore..