**** Chapter Nineteen – Next Stop, Texas ****

Brin and Mila got along well in the back seat and the return to the camp site was non-eventful. I introduced Brin to Sonya and then Matilda showed off her chickens; the chickens earned me another humorous grin from Sonya. I walked the dogs out to meet Abigail, she simply sniffed them, snorted and started checking my pockets for a treat. I gave her an apple and with that she promptly ignored us.

Matilda was trying to unload the dog cart from the bed of the truck when I returned, I took over for her and then demonstrated how it was quickly assembled. It was a compact little thing designed for one person and a small cargo load. I brought Brin over and he eagerly stepped into the traces, I quickly shared the lesson Frank had given me on hooking the dog up. Within ten minutes we had a fully functioning dog cart ready to go, Sonya simply stared in amazement as Matilda climbed into the driver’s seat and Brin took her in a circle around the yard.

I called Matilda back over and tossed a couple of loaves of alfalfa into the bed of the cart and then off her and Brin went to feed Abigail, Mila paced along side of Brin full of curiosity. Sonya, herself, was full of questions but I merely told her to watch Brin; Matilda had a smile on her face but Brin had a huge happy grin on his. Brin liked to pull the cart.

I gave Matilda about a half hour while Sonya and I unloaded the rental truck. I then called Matilda over and had her put a harness on Mila, we then added Mila to the trace and off Matilda went again this time being pulled by a pair of dogs. Mila simply followed Brin’s lead and got the hang of it in no time, the next thing I knew the three of them were headed off down the road to points unknown. It was an hour before we saw them again.

Sonya started to work on dinner and while I unpacked our new deliveries, our new laptop and tablet had arrived so after everything was stowed and packing materials tossed into the house’s trash bin I ran the new laptop through its set-up routine and started to download the libraries we were slowly building on-line. With all the memory card slots full I had almost 4 terabytes of storage space to fill up.

Matilda eventually came back sitting smiling on the cart being pulled by two very happy dogs; there were fresh greens and some berries in the bed of the cart. Matilda seemed to be very much in her element. After the dogs were fed and watered I showed her how to brush them down and check for harness sores, I explained fully how any animal needed to be curried and checked immediately after being worked. There was a brief standoff when Brin tried lay on Mila’s blanket but dominance in this case was pre-determined by Mother Nature and he moved to the blanket I had laid out for him. In a dog’s world the leader of the pack always got the place closest to the master and the leader of the pack was always a bitch; it didn’t matter how big and bad Brin was, Mila was in charge.

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Dinner was a delight as always and it was hard to object to the company, both ladies were easy on the eyes and talkative Sonya usually kept some sort of conversation or monologue flowing. After dinner I went to check on Abigail and give her quick end of day grooming. On my return I was surprised to find Matilda operating the new tablet while Sonya sat next to her providing guidance. I asked Sonya to show Matilda how to cast to the big screen and within minutes I was watching as Matilda worked her way through the online book libraries tagging books to our queue.

I fired up my own laptop and logged in remotely to our new library laptop which was now secured safely up in the rig’s electronics bay, it was faithfully downloading our purchased and tagged books at a slow but steady pace. After that I worked on figuring out how to download some video’s which were basically educational “How To” regarding life in more primitive times. I had learned well during my youth that knowledge was far more important than belongings when you were on an off-grid, long term hunting excursion.

Sonya was unusually subdued that evening and she seemed to be furtively checking her personal phone at a constant rate. I didn’t feel it was my place as her boss to intrude but I was beginning to worry that undertaking this trip with me was causing problems in her personal life. I decided I needed to keep an eye on that situation but at that moment I needed to distract her.

I spoke out regarding Matilda’s sudden adaption to the tablet and audibly wondering if Matilda had a phone that would meet our needs; Sonya took the bait and asked Matilda to show us her phone. Sonya could get Matilda to do things and out came an actual brick phone circa 2002, I wasn’t surprised – Matilda tended to keep things like that simple. This actually made my mission easier, I simply turned to Sonya and asked her to arrange a new phone for Matilda and to please make sure it was ruggedized. Boom – just like that Sonya was busy again and done moping.

Mila slept with Sonya as normal and I took Brin into my tent with me; Matilda had that cat thing and so passed our night.

Morning brought more of the same routine: wake up, bathroom, chores, breakfast, break camp, drop off rental truck and hit the road. The only difference was we had to load the dog cart into the storage room. The room was designed to hold a couple of ATV’s or Snowmobiles plus supplies so I had plenty of space, securing everything was the only real effort.

For today everyone but Abigail travelled in the cab of the pickup, it was a bit tight in the back seat with two dogs, a cat, and Matilda but they all managed. We were in Lubbock, Texas about seven hours later.

Our reserved camping spot in Lubbock was much the same, a vacant farm that was on the market. We had a pasture for Abigail and plenty of privacy. Sonya had spent much of the drive when we weren’t working on business matters fussing with her phone and she was getting grumpy, my concern was growing.

We set up camp, worked with the animals and had another wonderful dinner prepared by Matilda. There wasn’t a lot of conversation that evening; I had nothing I felt needed saying, Sonya was predisposed on her phone and Matilda of course just didn’t talk. Outside of my concerns for Sonya it was a quiet and pleasant evening for me.

We all retired early that night. I spent some time sitting outside my tent enjoying the clear starry night and then turned into my tent and climbed into my bed.

Matilda however had other plans and it was hardly an hour later when I woke as she slipped silently into bed with me. I didn’t get nearly as much sleep as I thought I would.