Dan and the Bottle Ch. 20

Dan Jenkins spoke up. "We need a helluva lot more people than we've got here, then."

Mike nodded. "How many ranches and farms are there, around here? Fifteen, twenty?"

"Depends on how far out you wanna look... and are we just countin' ranchers, or do you want to get the hired hands in on this, too?"

"Well, when it comes down to it, we're all Texans, ain't we?"

None of them could argue with that.

Marshall Johnson spoke up for the first time.... he was the oldest man in the room, by far, and most of the others had asked his advice at one time or another.

"Well, gentlemen, the way I see it, we have to figure out three things.... short term goals, long term strategy, and tactics. Our tactics, they might have to change with the changing situation, so we'll leave those for last... our long term strategy is a bit tougher. Do we want to hook up with this 'militia' to the north of us, eventually?"

Mike nodded. "Good question.... because if we do, we may have to adapt our long term strategy to fit in with theirs."

The others nodded in agreement.

Marshall smiled. "We know what kinda goal they're lookin' at... but they're dealing with Chinese, for the most part; and we've got Cubans in this part of the country... so our tactics will have to be different."

Mike nodded.... "I was kinda thinkin' maybe we should start by just keepin' an eye on their patrols, see if we can't get a handle on their patterns. Times, routes, size, what kinda weapons they're carrying.... if we can ambush them, we can add their weapons and ammo to our own supplies."

Dan Jenkins looked up at this... "Well, can we get enough people together to start by just watchin' their garrison? That'd be a huge help, right there. If we know what times they leave, we can start having some of ours watching where they go. We can't follow them, unless our people hang way back... the country's too flat. That means we have to post people around the territory, to see where they go without being obvious about it."

Marshall nodded. "We need folks who can think on their feet. People who know a good spot to set up an ambush when they see it... and that's only if they follow the same route every time."

"We'll need a lot of people just for that, then. How many of the local ranch owners do you know, personally, Marshall?"

Johnson sat back for a minute, counting in his head. "At least fourteen more, not countin' all of you. Joe Danson, his spread's next to mine.... I know he was complainin' a few weeks ago about soldiers crossin' his land, we can count on him, for certain. Jimmy Kent, one of his ranch hands, got shot by a Cuban a few months ago, so he's already pissed off at 'em. Doesn't even call 'em Cubans anymore, just says 'those bastards'."

The others smiled at this.

"Chet Younger, that farmer to my south, I think we could count on him, too.... he was bitchin' the other day. Seems he was in the middle of his corn harvest.... soldiers showed up, took half a dozen bushels right out of his truck. Pissed me off, too.... it was corn I was there to pick up to feed part of my herd with."

"Ouch... Hey, that reminds me... I heard you've got an extra bull calf this year.... you want to trade him, by any chance? I can give you, oh.... fifteen sacks o' feed grain for him." Jenkins offered. Marshall nodded.

"We can talk about it.... I've got three, actually, all sired by a big sumbitch of a bull, so I know none of 'em are gonna be small. Gonna take a bit more than fifteen sacks. How big was your grapefruit harvest this year?"

"More'n I know what to do with.... I'm squeezin' a ton of 'em for juice.... I could throw in, oh.... five bushels of them, and ten sacks of beans.... I've got pintos and red beans."

"Ok, we'll talk... "

Mike cleared his throat. "Gents, we're gettin' a bit off topic, here."

Marshall nodded. "You're right.... but it wouldn't be a meetin' like this without a little tradin' goin' on."

Mike smiled at this, knowing Marshall was right. "True... hey, if you've got three of them, can you stand to sell another one? My primary bull is gettin' a bit long in the tooth, too."

"Depends on what you're growing in your fields."

"We'll talk... meanwhile back, we need to go over some of our other resources, too."

Jake spoke up. "What do you mean?"

"Well.... who has machine tools, around here? If we're going to start going after these punks, we're gonna need some quiet weapons. A bunch of silencers would come in handy, for one thing... if we could build some to add onto the guns we've got, it would save us a whole bunch of time. We need access to metal cutting lathes and maybe one or two of those 'mill-drills'."

"Well, I know Chet's got a lathe... I needed a new pin for my old baler, he turned out two of 'em in about twenty minutes, pretty as you please. We can ask him about makin' parts for us."

Their meeting devolved from there, but each man was quietly compiling a listing of people who could be counted on, in the back of their minds.

Many, too, were making mental notes.... inform all of their hands that any movement by the Cubans was to be reported at once.

Jeanine and Caleb showed up at the front door at the same time as Billie Jean and Jeff, who was just back from California. Cassie opened the door as they were introducing themselves, and squealed happily as she caught sight of her old friends. Mike Donnelly showed up just as they were stepping inside, and Cassie greeted him with a deep kiss before ushering them all into first the kitchen, then the living room.

"C'Mon in guys!"

BJ smiled as she handed off the big bowl of corn muffins to Cassie, leaving her with both hands for the fettuccini pasta she'd brought for the potluck. They both headed for the big kitchen table, where Cassie and Doris had a big buffalo roast laid out, along with a big bowl of mashed potatoes that Shandra and Mark had brought along, and with a huge chocolate cake for dessert.

Fran and her husband, Mark, were the last ones in, Mark carrying a wooden crate full of bottles of various liquors and soft drinks, and Fran had a large pan of macaroni noodles in a five cheese blend and another of brownies.

Everybody settled in the living room with plates of the various foods, eating and gossiping while an old Bob Seger concert played in the background, Mickey playing bartender. He, too, was recently returned.

Dinner was winding down when Mickey raised a glass. "Ladies and gentlemen... to our fallen friends."

None had to ask who he meant, save for Caleb and Jeanine; several of their friends had been working in the new oilfields, and had been incinerated by the nuke that had gone off to the south of them. Everyone solemnly raised their glasses in silence. It didn't last, though.

Mark Culligan raised an eyebrow, after a long pull at his drink, and asked. "Does anyone know where it came from?"

Jeff shook his head. "Some folks are saying it might have been a leftover from the great war. Some folks think it was the Chinese, but I don't think so. I was talking to Colonel Archer, when he came down to the new base in northern California, and he said no planes or missiles showed up on the radars or the satellite feeds before it happened."

Mark Wellston nodded. "Same thing Frank Bergen said.... He said it was too small to be enemy action.... he thought it might have been one of those 'suitcase nukes', left over from the great war. Pissed him off for fair, too. He lost some of the best oilfield workers and construction people he had down there. It was just blind luck that I was his driver, that day. We were about twenty five miles out from there when it went off."

Mickey nodded. "We lost more than that.... that field of wells was going to supply enough oil to keep us going for an extra fifty years."

Mark Culligan nodded... "Yup.... but we've got two more, just like it.... one's in Oklahoma, the other one is somewhere in South Dakota, from what Mike Frasier was saying. Those two, between them, have enough to keep us supplied for the next forty, maybe fifty years, even if we use more than we are now. By that time, we might be able to send people back to the 'hot zone' and start pumping those wells."

Once the meal was finished, and the leftovers wrapped up, Mickey, both Marks, and Jeff all produced fat doobies, while Cassie and BJ mixed up fresh drinks for everyone there.

Caleb looked at the joint in his hand, musing, "It's funny.... my parents always said the old government had made this stuff illegal."

Mickey nodded. "We learned that in school.... our teachers all said that the old governments were famous for taking power where they had no right to. The founder of our city made sure there were plenty of copies of the original Constitution and Bill of Rights available; nowhere in them were the old governments, federal or state, given the authority to outlaw plant life. Those 'laws' were written to serve corporate greed, nothin' more nor less."

He sat back, after taking a deep hit off the Phillipino doobie in his hand, collecting his thoughts for a moment... but Caleb was the impatient sort and wanted to know what he meant.

"Well..." Mickey continued, after some prodding, "It started with a guy named Harry Anslinger, back in the 1920s or '30s.... Ol' Harry had himself a string of illegal bars, called Speakeasies, in a place called Harlem, in New York. This was back when alcohol was illegal, too. People who should have been going into his bars, mostly black people, weren't.... instead, they were smoking this completely legal weed known as marijuana. Problem is, Harry had an ace in the hole... aside from his illegal businesses, he was also the head of a government agency..... the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. So he shoved a bill through Congress, the Marijuana tax stamp act, I think it was called, that said you couldn't sell it or possess it without a federal tax stamp. Guess how many of those stamps were printed?"

Caleb shook his head.

"None. Nobody could get them, so it stayed illegal, except for a few states that told the feds to stuff it, right up until the great war."

"I don't get it.... how did that serve.... what did you call it? Corporate greed?"

"A lot of people used it as a remedy for pain, and a few other things. Epilepsy, glaucoma, cancer treatments.... that cut into the big drug companies' profits. A lot of other people used it as an alternative to beer, whiskey, that sort of thing... and that cut into the profits of the distilleries and the breweries."

Cassie smiled as she cut in. "Well, I'm just glad the founders of our city had more sense. I like burning a pipeful after a day in the kitchens."

Several of the others nodded their agreement.

Mickey got up to change the DVD, putting in an old Jethro Tull concert, and returned to his seat, and Doris moved to join him.

"We're going to do more than just sit around and talk tonight, aren't we, dear?"

He grinned and replied "I certainly hope so." as he reached for her shirt, pulling it over her head in one smooth motion.

Caleb and Jeanine were both a bit shocked at this turn of events. Particularly when Jeff and BJ moved over to join them, BJ settling beside Caleb, while Jeff sat down with Jeanine.

"Don't look so surprised, hun." BJ told Caleb. "We're all friends here.... we just like being a bit more than friends, sometimes."

Cassie settled next to Shandra, reaching over to kiss her thoroughly, while Mark reached over and started squeezing her full tits.

Jeff settled his hand on Jeanine's thigh, just below the bottom of her skirt, asking "What's the matter, hun.... never been with anyone else?"

"Nuh-nuh-no... Caleb an' me have been sweethearts since we were kids." She didn't know quite what to make of the situation. She was busy watching, fascinated, as Cassie vigorously kissed Shandra, and Mark started tugging at Cassie's shorts. Jeff grinned at her. "Don't worry... you're still his lady... nothin' says you can only have sex with him, right?"

Across the room, Fran had pushed Mark onto his back, and already had his cock in her mouth.

Doris maneuvered around so her head was between Fran's thighs, licking vigorously at her clit, while Mickey did the same for her. In a few short minutes, the entire living room had become a chaotic mass of writhing bodies.

Cassie kissed and licked her way down Shandra's chocolate skin, and Mark took advantage of this, getting up on his knees behind her, slipping his thick cock into her willing pussy and slowly pushing until he was buried in her to the hilt. Her moans soon began to vibrate on Shandra's clit, driving the young woman over the edge to a thunderous orgasm.

Jeff began planting random kisses all over Jeanine's jaw and chin, reaching for one of her small breasts as his own girlfriend took matters into her own hands, along with Caleb's cock, pulling at the zipper of his jeans and fishing out a firm eight inches, her eyes lighting up at the size of it... gobbling it down, ignoring his half-hearted protests even as Jeff gently pushed his girlfriend to her back so he could get his mouth on her hardening clit.

BJ got Caleb good and hard and moved up, quickly straddling him and fitting the head of his cock to her greedy pussy, taking him to the hilt in one thrust before beginning to slowly ride him.... Jeff, meanwhile, was busily licking Jeanine to the first of what would soon be multiple orgasms, before licking his way back up her body. His hardness slid into her almost automatically, and she looked up at him in surprise as he began a steady thrusting into her grasping cunt. Her legs came up to lock together behind him, and she began pushing back at him, urging him to fuck her hard.

Mark pulled out of Cassie, shifting position a little and fitting his still-hard cock to the little rosebud of her rectum and pushing back in, slowly, but she wasn't going for it, and pushed back hard, taking his length in one hard thrust.... he just grinned, and started a hard and fast fucking that soon had her squealing in delight. He couldn't last long, though, at that rate, and soon blasted his cum deep in her bowel. Mike stepped up as he pulled out of her, sliding his own seven inches into her tight pussy, fucking her doggy style hard and fast, pounding her with almost rabbit-like speed. Her small cries as he slammed her echoed across the room as she came again.

Shandra, meanwhile, took advantage of this, sliding up under Cassie until her mouth was in line with Cassie's still gaping pussy, her own cunt inline with her willing mouth, and tried, mostly successfully, to keep a sixty-nine going with her old friend even as her husband butt-fucked the other woman.

Doris, meanwhile, got up and walked over to an end table, reaching into a drawer and coming up with a mass of straps, which she climbed into carefully, buckling the thing about her waist and moving up behind BJ, squirting a small amount of lube onto the head of the attached dildo as she spread her old friend's ass cheeks.

BJ's eyes shot open at this second penetration, growing wider as she looked behind her to realize just who was fucking her backdoor. Doris just smiled back at her and gave another gut wrenching thrust into her bowel.

"Full of surprises tonight, honey?"

"You betcha, babe." Doris replied, as she reached around to fondle BJ's full breasts, beginning a hard, steady pumping into BJ's ass. The younger girl was soon over the edge, cumming almost non-stop from the double fucking she was getting.

Doris was getting it, too, as this particular toy had a curved section that fitted into her own pussy, so when she thrust into BJ, both of them felt it.

Jeff fucked hard into Jeanine, but couldn't last long, soon blasting his own cum deep inside of her; as he finished, she pushed him back on his heels, taking his semi hard cock in her mouth to clean him up.... she loved the taste of cum, and got it whenever she got the chance. As soon as he got hard again, though, he pushed her to her knees and fitted his new hard-on to the pink rosebud between her ass cheeks.

She braced herself, knowing this was going to hurt; she'd never had anal sex before. Pushing into her, he realized that she hadn't had a cock in her ass too often, if at all, so after getting the head past the tight opening, he paused for a moment, letting her get used to the sensation.

Jeanine, for her part, only let him put it there after seeing how much the other women in the room seemed to like it... as expected, it hurt, at first, but as Jeff was taking it slow, she had time to get ready for it, and as he began pushing further in, she began to enjoy it. Soon he was giving her his full length at every thrust, and she was pushing back against him, asking for more.

BJ rode Caleb hard and fast, with him thrusting back up at her, feeding her his entire length at each push, when he felt something strange... Mark Culligan had come up behind her and had slipped his cock into her ass and was soon pounding away at her backdoor.

"Oh, God.... fuck meeee.... " she moaned as the two men double teamed her.

Mike sat back with a drink and another doobie, recharging his batteries, and Jeff sat beside him, similarly spent for the moment.

"Hey, Jeff, been meanin' to ask you... what ever happened to that little gal that was livin' with you and BJ, back at the Cave?"

"Missy? She's still there... she took up with Pete Dawson, a couple of months after she got herself straightened out, about a month before BJ and I moved down here. They're doing ok... last I heard, they're expecting their first child in a couple more months. Pete's a decent sort... he'll make a good Dad."

"Damn."

"What's wrong?"

Mike gave a sheepish grin. "I was kinda hopin' to ask her out, myself."

As more of the couples and threesomes, finished and settled to the furnishings and patches of floor, Mickey got up to change the DVD again, this time to an old Rush concert, and stepped behind the bar, fixing more drinks and a big pot of Hawaiian coffee for himself.

Doris and BJ went to the kitchen, bringing the huge chocolate cake, the pan of brownies, and a stack of small plates and forks out to set on the low coffee table that had gotten pushed over against the wall.

They sat for a while, making small talk and indulging in the rich desserts, before some started looking for their clothes and saying their farewells, citing early workdays in the morning.

Frank Bergen sat back at the desk in the empty office at the new Cooper base, smiling from ear to ear. He'd been right; this base had an underground storage facility, and it was, once again, nitrogen-preserved. They hadn't found any armor here, but there were small fleets of helicopters and planes, mostly older models of the F-16s, Blackhawks, and Chinooks, and a nice side chamber full of infantry weapons and ammunition.

What was better, the base commander here, back in the day, must have enjoyed his creature comforts.... they'd found over fifty cases of various whiskeys and scotch.... and all of it preserved in a layer of nitrogen gas that came up almost to the top of the long ramp. Even with five compressors running, it had taken nearly seven hours to pump it all out.

Two of the next three bases were similarly equipped, and the last of the five, as well.

When all four of the inventories were tallied up, they had nearly four hundred thousand of the M-16s and M-4 carbines, along with close to fifty thousand grenade launchers, twenty thousand rocket launchers, and an additional ten thousand silenced sniper rifles in four different calibers. There were also huge stockpiles of ammunition for everything, including the grenade launchers, and cases of smaller ordinance.

That didn't even take into account the armor and the aircraft, including over a hundred of the A-10 ground support planes.