Retreat

Retreat.

At the retreat, he got out of the truck and opened the tail gate and
took the box with the wagon out and put in under the patio. Since he
didn't eat lunch yet, he decided to go ahead and let the trailers
worry about what they had seen. He sat on a lounge in the sunshine
and ate it. He had to smile a lot as he thought about the jerks that
followed him.

After eating, he closed up the tail gate, got in the truck, touched
the broach and said, "back". His truck dropped in behind them at the
pull-off. He started the truck, pulled out onto the highway, tooted
the horn at them and drove past. He could see as he passed them, that
there were two Chinese, with horrified looks on their faces. Good
deal, he thought and laughed like mad.
He also noticed they didn't follow him any more that day.

Back at the farm, he went in the house , and as he stepped into the
living room, Angel jumped off Lucas's lap and ran over to him and then
went to the door. Lucas had been laying back in his recliner taking a
nap and now he raised up as Linc went out the door to let Angel do her
potty job. As she was looking for the right spot, he went and hid
behind John's truck. He saw her go back to the steps, then she went
looking for him. Didn't take her long to find him. He picked up a
stick and threw it as far away as he could and when she ran after it,
he hid again. She found him right away. He threw the stick again,
and ran to hide, but she was right behind him. He heard some clapping
and laughing, and looked up on the porch to see Lucas had put on a
jacket and had come out for some fresh air. Lucas said, " you are
going to have to do better than that, because she is one smart little
girl. I have already started to teach her a few things. You really
need to work with her, she's old enough to teach . I have already
showed her how to go up and down the steps by herself". " I know",
said Linc as he went up on the porch. "Since John and Trudy are going
to be gone, Why don't we go to the retreat and spend a couple days out
in the sunshine. I got a wagon while I was in town today and already
took it to the retreat". He then told Lucas what had happened that
morning. Lucas laughed and said, I'll bet those two wet their pants
when you showed up behind them. I'm ready to go to the retreat, you
know I love it there". Linc said, " need to remember to take Angel's
collar and leash, and get started with her while we are there".


The next morning he told John and Trudy, if they wanted to leave right
after breakfast, to go ahead. He and Lucas would take care of the
chores. John had already milked the cow so there really wasn't that
many more chores for them to do. They said that would be great, and
left right after breakfast while Linc was doing the cleanup. Linc fed
the pig, while Lucas took care of the chickens, then they both got
their stuff ready to go to the retreat. They could spend a couple of
days there while only leaving the farm for a couple of hours., with
the time difference. Plenty of time to come back and do the next days
chores, and still go back to the retreat.
As they were getting ready to leave, the Sheriff called. He said, "I
thought I would give you a call and warn you. I don't know what those
two Chinese are going to do, but the hotel manager called the office
and told us that they have checked out. They are from LA. And I can
only hope they are headed back there. Just thought you should know in
case they head your way, even though they were seen heading west out
of town ". Linc told the sheriff thanks for the info, and he would
keep an eye out for them. He Told Lucas, and they both had a laugh.
Linc said, " those guys probably couldn't get out of here fast
enough. I doubt if they will bother us for a while, but I'll bet we
will hear from them or some other bunch again, before too long. Gone
for good is almost too much to hope for".

At the retreat, Linc put the collar and leash on Angel and they went
for a walk to get her used to the new stuff. They went down toward
the small cave where Angel found the box with the diamonds. She had
to go back in there and came out with the dino. Now at least she had
a new toy since Linc forgot to bring her teddy bear.
They spent two restful days, walking, playing pool, teaching Angel
how to mind on a leash and swimming, Linc was even able to coax Angel
into the water. They took the wagon out of the box and put it
together.

They did up all the laundry and cleaned up before they went back to the farm.

That evening, at the farm, Linc took the milk pail and went down to
the barn to milk the cow. He put some hay out for the calf and some
hay in the trough by the milk stall for the cow to eat while he milked
her. After milking her, he stood up from the stool and stepped back,
into a portal he didn't even know was there. Now what, he thought.
Here I am with a pail of milk in my hand and a stupid look on my face.
He turned around hoping to see the portal, but saw he was standing on
the same hill in Egypt, overlooking the pyramids, but now the pyramids
were no longer the smooth sided glistening white pyramids he
remembered.
This time there were people. They had carts, and wagons. They were
breaking huge slabs of the limestone from the pyramids and loading
chunks of it onto carts and hauling it away. Some of the carts were
taking the limestone down to the Nile river and loading it onto
barges. This was un-believable. They had already stripped most of
the limestone coating from the two smaller pyramids and had most of
the larger one almost stripped as well. The golden caps were already
gone. I wonder what time period this is, thought Linc. Looking down
the hill a ways he saw two men with swords in their hands, coming
toward him. He looked around frantically for the portal, when all of
a sudden, it opened and he jumped through, almost spilling the milk.
Darn, that was close, he thought.
He poured some milk for the cats and fed them some cat food. Since
they didn't need the rest of the milk, he gave the rest of it to the
pig. He thought as he went back to the house, Gramps just wouldn't
really need to know about the portal just now.
Lucas had fed the chickens and gathered the eggs, so the evening
chores were done. They sat and watched the news on TV before Linc
went into the kitchen to fix supper.
The next morning they fed the animals and did all the chores before
they went to the retreat.
Linc decided since he was here at the retreat and the family would be
coming here soon, he had better do some needed house cleaning.
While Lucas had Angel on the leash and was teaching her to heel, Linc
decided to clean the cave out first. He swept the kitchen and main
room, then started on the small bedroom. He cleaned out from under
the bed. Noticed there were two pillows on the bed and decided to
take the extra pillow up to the house. When he looked at the pillow,
he found it wasn't a regular pillow, but a huge white fur muff, with a
pillow case on it. That's strange he thought why? Well he put real
pillow back on the bed and took the fur muff pillow, to take up to the
house. After dusting everything he went to clean the main bedroom. He
emptied all the papers, magazines and such from the bed stand tables
Then he swept and dusted everything. He was looking at the stuff
from the bedside tables and discovered that there was a journal that
had belonged to Estelle Hancks. Well he couldn't read French, so that
would do him no good. He thought, when he got back to the farm, he
would send it to Fannie and have her read it. Maybe there would be
some info that would explain the box with the diamonds. Who knows, he
thought. Never know if you don't try.
When he was all done with the cleaning, Linc took the pillow,
journal and all the stuff to be washed up to the house. Lucas had
tired out from working and playing with Angel, and was sitting on a
lounge in the sun.
Linc told him about the journal and the strange fur muff that had been
used as a pillow down in the small bedroom at the cave. Lucas looked
at it and said, " it isn't rabbit fur. Too coarse. Looks more like
maybe a white fox or something. Hard to tell. Sure nice, though it's
quite large for a muff. But you can see that it is. Who knows"?
After looking at the journal, he said, " Printed French is hard
enough for me to figure out, but handwritten French, looks like
chicken tracks. Somebody else will have to tell you what it says".

Linc loaded up the washer , before starting lunch. He made some
sandwiches and they ate out on the patio.
Linc put the clothes in the dryer and reloaded the washer. He
decided to check the couch in the living room. He knew it made into a
bed, but he had never checked in the storage compartment to see if
there was any bedding in there. He opened it to find two pillows and
two blankets. No sheets or cases. He checked the linen closet to
see what was there, then decided he better bring a couple more sheets
and blankets back with him.

Linc spent the rest of the day doing odd jobs with the cleaning.
Didn't want his Mom to think he had turned into a slob.

Linc and Lucas spent the last two days working with Angel, playing
pool and just loafing around. Then they put things in order and went
back to the farm.

To be continued.