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Where am I? A moment of panic. Nah, it's all right. I got it. Damn, first time I didn't sleep in my own bed. Jessica. We never slept together. Correction, never since before I was in that hospital. We used to. Just don't remember. His movement woke Jessica. She placed a hand on his chest. "You OK?" "I am now. Forgot where I was." "It's you first time sleeping away from home." "Yeah, I'm good." Jessica reached over to the nightstand and picked up her phone, looked at it. We're at Scott's place. We were shootin' guns yesterday. What... "It's almost seven." Jessica said. "Have a good sleep?" "Yeah, pretty good." He got to a sitting position, swung his feet off onto the floor. Got up, not bothering to feel for his cane. Gettin' pretty good at this. He found the cane though, and used it as he moved away from the bed. Jessica was up, getting dressed. He looked for his clothes. They hadn't planned to stay the night, but decided to accept the invitation to extend their stay. They left the bedroom and went into the kitchen. Scott and Michelle were already up, breakfast on the table. "Early risers." Alex said. "Yeah," Scott said, "too much to do to waste any more of the day than you have to." Alex's sleep pattern had only become normal after he began imbibing alcohol before bedtime. He wondered what would happen if he stopped. Better than using chemicals. I guess. Normality seemed to be returning. Was a complete recovery possible? Stop worrying, OK? Let it go. It's getting better. Does it ever get perfect? Work with what you got. Alex sipped coffee. Fully awake now, he sampled the eggs and sausage. Not the bacon. Not too crazy about bacon. Sausage good. Hafta ask Jessica if I always preferred sausage. "Want to shoot some more?" Scott asked. "Sounds good." Alex replied. "I'll give you a tour around the place." Scott said. "You can get more of a feel for the area. After lunch we can see what you can do with handguns. You were pretty handy with pistols."
A small bridge, wide enough for a vehicle to cross but barely, spanned the creek. Jessica and Alex rode on a small off-road vehicle, following Scott and Michelle on another. They parked on the other side and dismounted. For the next hour or so they walked among the large trees. "This is a pretty old forest." Scott told them. "Probably over a hundred years old. What it was like before I don't know, but if it was cleared before, must have been well before World War I. and grew back. I cut some big oaks down here and had an old fellow at Rondo, had mules he used to haul logs out, special order. I got three foot panels out of some of them, but I used two-footers in the house." The forest floor was quiet, and even in the bright sun the light was dim even though the the new growth of leaves was just beginning. The previous year's leaves formed a thick carpet and there was little undergrowth. I want to lie down here and go to sleep for a few years. Don't want to go back out there in that world.
After a light lunch they went to the armory, as Scott called it. Several large gun safes stood against one wall, and a couple of unsecured gunracks held a number of long guns. A large cabinet with glass doors held a similar number of handguns. Scott selected a couple of pistols and handed them to Jessica and Alex. "Hang on to these," he said, "and we'll get some ammo." He selected two large canvas bags and handed one to Michelle. "That should do us," he said, holding the other bag. "Let's go do some shooting." |
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