The Free Republic of Texas 2015 by TJ Reeder

instead he smiled real big and shouted out a long bunch of words the last one was all I knew, the native clan members all shouted and started singing, the log that was the drum was being beat to death with gusto, and Jody turned to John and said something to him, he raised his arms and when it was quiet he announced to “MY” clan that the bride was “Jade” and the locals not to be outdone let out some loud Rebel yells and somebody started shooting in the air…and it was done.
     
    Well no, the renaming was done, but now we had to kill and eat another hog which I found out had been done while we were sleeping…the feast started as soon as it was almost dark and lasted until the last person turned out the lights and crawled home.
     
    Getting married is rough enough if it a plain old boring American wedding, being at a wedding of these people who were thousands of miles from their roots well it was a really wonderful thing, And it made them feel like this land was now their home, which I found out it was because they were all moving here in a few days, Jody said we would have much need for them in the times to come and god knows how right he was to be,
     
    Me I didn’t care, I had Sin….er…Jade now and …..well for as long as we have together, I had learned the hard way that it’s all about the right now, here this minute, because in the next minute it could all be gone, so from this moment I would live each and every hour of every day as if it might be the last, with love and joy for the time we have.
     
    By the next day things were getting back to normal, Jade and I cooked breakfast together for Jody and Song, who’s name didn’t change it seems.
    After we had eaten we talked about the progress being made on the Mall and the other projects, Jody talked to me about going ahead with earth bagging the green houses but that for the rest of the barns and other buildings he wanted to change the plan to what looked like the old Quonset buildings , half round shells of metal, with earth covering them 3 ft deep and earth berm’s shielding the front and back ends where big heavy doors opened like garage doors only bigger, with room to drive around them and into the barns, I could see where this was going and agreed at once, also the job would be much faster.
     
    I asked about the Clan as we came to call them, Jody said most , not all would be coming to the ranch to live, mostly the older ones who remembered their old way of life and they wanted to live in the forest around the ranch and use native materials to build their homes.
     
    I said hell lets build them houses but Song said this was what they wanted so it looked like we would have a tribe of people living as they had for a thousand years right inside the woods.
     
    I asked about food and he said they would grow gardens as always, and the men would hunt the forest as always, and seeing as they dearly loved their pork and seeing as Texas only had about 4 million hogs running wild and breeding faster then they could be killed it was a win - win for all concerned, but I also had come to know my new father in law and brother in law well enough to know there was more to this then I knew, but I would be told when I needed to know.
     
    So life on the ranch moved along and the work was going fast, I was happy, Jade was happy, what more could a man ask for? Life is good!
     
    A week later I was at the mall just watching the work going on, John asked me to go for coffee so we headed down the road to the Early Bird, there was a goodly bunch in the place and all gave big howdy’s and smiles, John was a regular now and several called out to him and bantered back and forth.
     
    Miss Ellie asked if we’d like Pie with our coffee and of course we did, I also asked her to bring an extra piece and another cup of coffee, she did look at me sorta funny but I was learning real fast, well sir, I was into my second bite when the door flew open and , you got it, the bottomless