Chương 40: Unwanted Company

Day 26 Dydd Mercher Mai 5th (Monday) I woke up to the sun peeking over the horizon and smiled as I opened my eyes to behold my almost finished cabin. Today, we'd get that completed, and then tomorrow we'd plant corn. As I stepped out of my tractor, I was in an absolutely wonderful mood as my two favorite murder bunnies greeted me. Spot and Buck didn't have any carcasses to present to me this morning.

"Are you two doing such a good job that no predators want to come on the homestead anymore?" I cooed as I petted them. They leaned into the pets and made their happy, chuffing, almost bark sounds in response. As I stood up and dusted my hands off, I said, "You two are the best guard rabbits ever! Keep up the good work." They bounded off to herd the ducks or geese or something like that. My "One day at a time" mantra felt like it was working really well for me right now.

My mental health was in a great place, and I was having a good time. I wasn't feeling any negative side effects from spending most nights sleeping in my tractor, but I knew I would ruin my tractor seat pretty quickly if I kept spending so much time in it. I'd certainly end up with some weird butt grooves that weren't in the spot I'd want them in. As I was walking around my cabin to inspect our handiwork, Colin opened the door to his cabin. I smiled and waved at him.

"How're you doing this morning bud?" He yawned and sort of mumbled out, "ummokay." My face was beaming; I couldn't suppress my excitement.

"Very good. My cabin looks good so far. Let's get the animals watered, check on the crops, and then finish this bad boy up."

"Alright John, we'll get to it," Colin said, more than a little less enthused than I was. I knew what would cheer him up though.

"If we get this done by lunch, you can go spend the rest of the day at the river fishing, or maybe even some hunting if you have the energy." He smiled at that and moved a little quicker. We got to the chores, hauling water and looking for duck and goose eggs. The chickens were put in their coops every night, but the ducks and geese were just herded close to the cabin to bed down in a spot the rabbits could keep an eye on them.

Ducks in particular had a notorious reputation for hiding their eggs so we wanted them close to the cabin. About the time we decided we'd either found all the eggs, or the ducks were evil geniuses too smart for us, Emily called out that it was time to eat. As we got to the front porch, she smiled at me and held out what looked to be a breakfast sandwich. Seeing my smile, she said, "I thought you might like this. I remember you saying you liked to fry bread and put eggs and bacon on it.

Colin brought back butter and bacon, so it seemed like a good time to try slicing up that bread I made a couple of days ago."

"Thanks!" I mumbled, having already taken a bite. Emily smiled and shook her head.

"I don't know why that makes the food taste better to you. We already eat bacon and eggs with toast or muffins just about every morning."

"It just does," I said, more clearly now that I'd swallowed my bite.

"Plus it's faster. We can get my cabin done even earlier! I told Colin if we were done with the daub by noon we could go to the river and fish for the rest of the day." Then I leaned closer to her and said in an exaggerated conspiratorial whisper, "Plus, we can throw him in the river with a bar of soap to wash off the stink." Emily laughed and Colin yelled out, "Hey! Not nice!" With that, all three of us got to work on the daub. It was definitely a bit of a gross activity.

We created a mud hole near a patch of ground that looked like it had a lot of clay, then we threw in a bunch of grass that we'd chopped down just outside the homestead. Finally, we threw in all the goat turd pellets that we'd collected from their pens. That would help everything bind together. After all, the Bible said the Hebrews only needed clay, straw, and dung to make bricks!

We wouldn't be making this into bricks, but we would make it into a paste that would be troweled into the one-inch gaps we hadn't filled in with chinking. With all three of us working together, it only took us a few hours to fill everything in. Not having a chimney really sped up the process. The almanac said that you were supposed to line a chimney with daub up to a foot thick. That would have taken days of work. At 11: 30 we were staring at an unfurnished, but mostly completed log cabin.

It had only taken us two and a half days of build time. Even with our extra strength and stamina, that felt like a lightning-fast build without heavy equipment, and from a couple of amateurs at that. Of course, we'd spent days cutting logs down and making all the cuts. And that had been made easier by a magical saw that cut even faster than a modern saw from earth would have been able to achieve. And with my UI guiding the saw, there were zero screwups.

As we all stood around the finished for now, cabin, I observed out loud, "Well, I'm pretty impressed with us if I do say so myself, and I do," I chuckled at my own words. I looked over and saw Colin just shake his head at me, but he was smiling. Emily smiled as well, probably at my words and Colin's reaction.

"Well," I said.

"Let's wash up a bit, then we can grab some food and take it to the river. How's that sound to you two?" Colin enthused, "Yeah!" and ran towards the bucket and well to get started on washing up. Emily turned to me and said, "You know, I truly am grateful for how everything has turned out so far since you showed up." Just as I was about to respond, I heard a shout coming from the edge of the property.

"What the fuck is this!? I can't believe this shit!" Emily and I wheeled around, both at the vulgar language and rude interruption. Emily spoke softly, "Oh dear. What is this?" Riding towards us and gesticulating wildly in what could only be described as an angry and aggressive manner was Thomas Roberts.

"I don't know," I said.

"Roberts said he was going to come see me in a couple of weeks. I guess he couldn't wait." As he got closer to us, he blurted out again, "I can't fucking believe your carelessness and ignorance, you dumb sonofabitch!" The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Hey!" I yelled.

"Watch your language! There is a lady standing right next to me. Didn't your mother ever teach you manners?" His face was red, but his next words, though still full of anger, were free of expletives.

"Mr Jacobson, I need to speak with you in private." Emily began to speak, "If it is regarding Mr Jacobson and this homestead, I think I would like to remain."

"Lady, I'd kindly ask you to piss off." Roberts spat out. His horse snorted and threw its head back at his vitriolic words. I reached out and grabbed his horse's bridle in an attempt to calm it down, and in a tone devoid of emotion, I said, "Mr Roberts, if you ever speak to Emily like that again, I will put you on your ass. I don't know what level you currently are, but even if you and I are both level 20, I'd say I'm the bigger and stronger man here. I will knock you on your backside, and kick you off my land."

I turned to Emily.

"Listen, I apologize, I'm sure we can talk later, but despite his behavior so far, I believe Mr Roberts has something he would like to discuss in private. If it is something that will affect you and Colin then by the System, I promise I will inform you. I really do apologize." The look on Emily's face told me she was not pleased with me at the moment, but she only gave me a curt nod.

"Very well, Colin and I will bring lunch to the river, I hope you join us there shortly. Mr Roberts, I hope you understand that I will not be asking you to join us." With that, she walked towards her cabin to grab the food. After a couple of seconds, I could see her animatedly whispering to Colin, who had grabbed his rifle when the shouting began. Good boy, I thought. Colin had good instincts indeed.

Roberts and I stood in awkward silence until after Emily had retrieved her picnic basket and Colin had retrieved his fishing pole. I couldn't help but notice that he was still carrying his rifle too.

"Well?" I finally said.

"What is wrong with you?"

"You have a goddamned modern fucking tractor just sitting here out in the open!" he shouted. I put a hand up.

"Listen, I clearly don't need to hide that I'm not from this planet to you, and back home I cussed like a sailor. I grew up in a household of farmers who cussed like sailors. But I haven't noticed anyone else out here cussing more than occasionally, so why don't we try and act civilized?"

"Fuck. You," Roberts responded.

"But that does explain your levels." His words and the tension in them caused his horse to stamp nervously.

"Alright, one more time," I eyed him with a stern expression.

"There is no need to drop F bombs in this conversation. There didn't even need to be any animosity between the two of us. There certainly is now though. Plus you're spooking your horse. I don't want to end up getting trampled."

"Listen." He took a deep breath, and a little of the flush left his face.

"I can't believe you would be so damned irresponsible and leave that monstrosity just sitting out in the open. You know, I was riding my chopper when I was portaled in. But I hid that thing just as soon as I could!" He took another deep breath. There had been more emotion creeping into his words again at the end.

"What do you think the good bishop would say if he saw that tractor?"

"Well, I planned on having it hidden in the woods again once I got my corn planted," I told him.

"Holy hell, you used it to plant?" He looked over and saw my rows and shook his head.

"Goddamnit you did! I was only sent over with my motorcycle and my tools, I was a mechanic, but I've kept that all hidden." I shook my head.

"Maybe the motorcycle. But I was told you do a lot of mechanical type things, they said you make great axles and small parts that are even better than people with skills." He looked at the ground before looking back up at me.

"But I don't do anything that would stand out so much that it would be obvious I'm from another world."

"Earth right?" I asked, curiosity in my tone.

"Yeah, we called it that, but maybe not the same one. I've met one other man like us, Captain Blackstone, he's the head of the force that goes to the fort down south. He was a mercenary before. I don't think the world he came from was the same as the one I did. There must be lots of different ones. This one's way different than mine. I weren't even be sure this was Earth if Blackstone hadn't been convinced it was. The land is so different." He waved off at the distant mountains. He paused, then pointed at me.

"We're getting distracted. You need to hide that damned tractor, now. And never use it again." I laughed at him.

"I'll hide the tractor as soon as I'm done planting corn. It'll take me a couple of hours tomorrow. I am planting with it. Just so you know, I also planted potatoes, they were already in the bin when I showed up here." He looked at me incredulously.

"What!? Didn't anyone tell you that they're super rare, the goddamned dwarves have them." He shook his head and, more to himself than to me, quietly said, "there's fucking dwarves here."

"Language." I reiterated.

"Have you seen any dwarves? Or anything not human?" Roberts shook his head.

"They keep saying there's trolls and goblins in the mountains, but I ain't seen nothing besides magic that you wouldn't have seen in a tv show about settler times." Now that he'd calmed down just a little, he was becoming more talkative. I wanted to keep that going.

"Does my tractor look like one you'd have seen before portaling over? And you said you were a mechanic?" He nodded towards my tractor.

"Well, I sure as hell ain't seen nothing as fancy as that one. But, I wasn't a farmer, and I certainly wasn't a rich boy like you must have been. But I seen the name New Holland before, and they were blue tractors like that."

"And yeah, I worked on motorcycles, mostly. But I had a shop where we worked on cars too." He looked me in the eye.

"But I was in a mite bit of trouble back home with some bikers that I shouldn'ta dealt with." He pulled his shirt down to show more of the neck tattoo that his beard mostly hid.

"I was the preferred bike shop to work on the Flaming Choppers' bikes. But they wasn't too good at paying. I finally took one of em to the chop shop just before I got taken. They was probably gonna kill me." Then he pointed out to encompass the entire area.

"I certainly ain't no fancy farmer, but I'm making do, and I like my new life, and I think you might be a problem." He looked me in the eye as if daring me to challenge his assertion.

"What do you want me to say?" I shrugged.

"I was a fancy farmer. I'm already level 20. Emily says I'll evolve after this year thanks to my potatoes."

"Have you told them you're from another world?" he asked, pointing towards the river.

"Not explicitly, but it's crazy to think they don't already know with that tractor sitting there," I said.

"Can they be trusted? Or will they be an issue?" His tone suggested if they were an issue, he might need to take care of it. My voice was cold as I replied.

"I want to make one thing crystal clear. Whether or not they can be trusted is none of your concern. And if it is, it's because you came barging in here like an asshole and made a scene. If you ever threaten them, I'll put a bullet in you." I wanted to get more information out of the guy, but I was so disgusted by his behavior that I figured it would be best to just get this conversation over with. So I continued on.

"And I mean that. I am certain that if you just leave, we can pretend like none of this ever happened. I'm not going to say we can reset the relationship and move on. I don't like you, and I doubt I ever will."

"Same to ya." Roberts responded.

"You're clearly an idiot with what you've done here."

"Maybe I am." I acknowledged.

"But I'm a farmer in whatever world I'm a part of. I'll hide my tractor once I've planted corn. No one will need to see it again for the entire year. I don't have any harvesting equipment. Right now the important people think I came here with backing from somebody with a lot of political power. They won't find anything, but it should be good enough to deal with the potatoes."

"Maybe," Roberts said.

"And maybe they pick you up and torture you til you tell on me too." I laughed bitterly.

"The bishop actually says he likes you. If you had just stayed away then I never would have known." That last part was a lie; I'd suspected it right away, but I would have kept my mouth shut. I continued on.

"You stay away from me and this homestead. I don't have any intentions of ratting you out unless someone rats me out. It won't be Emily or Colin, I'm sure of that. They already would have if they intended to." Roberts had finally mostly calmed down. I don't know what he'd actually intended by coming here, but my tractor had set him off and derailed any civil conversation we could have had.

He said to me, "Listen Jacobson, or whatever your real name is, You hide that tractor, and do shit the way it should be done in this world. I think you're reckless and stupid. But if you are a little smarter then maybe you won't end up wherever people like us end up." With that, he turned around and began riding back the way he had come. He had a hell of a long way to go after what had been a brief and mostly unproductive conversation. He definitely wouldn't be an ally.

Looking back towards the river, I knew I needed to have a talk with the two people I could count on as allies. I sighed and began walking towards the river. I still smelled like manure, but I would wash up down there.