Richard and Paige were on the third floor inspecting the upper rooms. Both had laid claim to second floor rooms they wanted for their families. I stealthily climbed the wide wood stairs, still getting used to the recent summertime switch from winter socks and boots to moccasins.
Richard told of the 18-hole golf course being ideal for farming and of numerous shallow lakes scattered around it. He and Paige were exuberant when they learned of the barns we could use for both horses and cows. Milking bails would need to be built to constrain the cows for hand milking and would consume a number of man-hours to complete.
On a hunch, I went to the first floor office and delved into the owner's file cabinets. Not surprisingly, I learned the house belonged to Harold Cleary, the owner of the stable across the road. It was likely he'd owned the golf course also. On the wall opposite the desk, hundreds of pictures were pinned to a custom-made cork board. On close inspection, I identified past state and federal senators and representatives plus movie and sports stars. There were even several military generals I recalled from TV news shows. Most of those were with Cleary and his family members, and the majority captured golf, fishing, or hunting trips. That explained the excessive number of bedrooms and the over-equipped kitchen. Mr. Cleary had ties to many important people.
We spent three more days exploring the area before heading home to retrieve our families and friends. During our travels, we learned game was plentiful. Besides the move itself, we were faced with a late start for planting. It was the last week of April and the acreages selected for planting hadn't been plowed for fifteen years. There was an extreme amount of work to be done in a short time by too few people. But if it could be accomplished, I had the right crew to do it.
We pushed the horses and arrived back at our soon to be abandoned homes before noon of our second day of the return trip.
I gathered the people making the move with us and told them we'd found a great new home. Paige and Richard shared their opinions on the lodge building and other features near it.
Vince stood in front of me. "Can you get the farm tractor loaded today and have it and the dump truck ready to roll in the morning?"
He grinned back at me proudly. "It's already loaded. All of the equipment batteries were replaced with new ones; they're still good because of the slow chargers Shane rigged to the remaining solar panel that feeds them. There're only two batteries left. When they die, the equipment will be useless. The fuel in the hundred gallon diesel tank in the back of the pickup was filtered and new additives were mixed in. Hopefully, its deteriorated condition won't hurt the engines before we're done moving and plowing. Another hundred gallons is prepared and loaded in fifty-five-gallon drums on the low-boy trailer with the tractor and its attachments."
I reached out and shook his hand. "Thanks for taking the lead and giving us a head start. There are about two hundred gallons of gasoline. We'll take half and leave the rest. Leave one-hundred gallons of diesel here and get the rest on our last lowboy load going out.
"We'll plan to finish our move in one week. Three farm trailers are available. One will be pulled by the pickup, the other two by four horse teams. We'll do this move the same as when we came here. On the first round of trips, eight adults and their rug-rats will leave and stay at the new homesite to unload goods on that end. The others will remain here to load out more belongings. Since the new home is furnished, the major items needed are several wood fired cook stoves and the piping and fittings to connect them."
I looked at the people in our group besides me and Kira: Paige and Mitch, Junior and Suzie, Vince and Grace, Richard and Carmen and their adult kids Bryon and Charise. Then there was Vivian, Larry and Brittney, Able and Allen plus thirteen kids under the age of ten.
"How many of you have started packing?" I asked as I grinned at the group. Everyone raised their hands. I was proud of this bunch; there wasn't a slacker among us. "Who wants to go in the first bunch to move?" Everyone raised their hands. "Looks like I'll have to decide. Mitch and Richard's families go on the first trip; they know the layout and will be a big help getting everyone settled in. Vivian, how about you, Larry and Brittney going first, too?" Brittney fisted the air and I took that as a yes.
Byron spoke. "We made that trip to Fort Leonard Wood. There were still field rations on the shelves and a bunch of clothing, mostly in small and larger sizes. We must have brought several hundred pairs of boots, again in small and larger sizes. Then we stumbled into the Military Police headquarters building. We hit the jackpot there on handheld weapons and a truck bed full of ammunition. Used clothing was hanging in lockers and we cleaned that out, too." I reached my hand to each of the four scavengers to congratulate them as he continued. "That's not all. Then we found the base laundry and found more clothing, bedding and towels."
I clasped him on the back. "The next time I need scroungers, I'm sending you four." The four of them grinned from ear to ear at the well deserved praise.
Later that afternoon and evening, many tears were shed as friends and relatives said emotionally difficult good-byes brought about by our conflicting ideology. It would
