C H A P T E R       N I N E
 
 

        Mightily eating their Flutey Flakes and feeling their oats out on
the veranda, our heros were enjoying the pluperfect postcard picture
of morning glory with all the others when they heard the helicopters
coming up the mountain. Julian, Julio, Wallace, Wally Junior, Emilio
and Pedro bid their adioses and walked the porch around to the
yard to meet the agents. And everyone else stayed on the veranda,
as planned.
        Jess and Flee were talking about the coming trip to Sundance
and what the movie would be like. Kit was just adoring Jessy, but
feeling she might be happier and safer on her own. There he went
again. But there had been some ominous reports that morning.
Unsigned countries were joining forces, though not Israel with them,
and had a group of notables (a word that notably breaks into "not"
and "able") contending the WPG leadership, spreading all kinds of
lies and fears; and black ops and old money guys, and terrorist
money, were starting some new conflicts and intimating some
possible assassinations. But, amazingly, they were using the old
codes, the Chippys had reported. So the back of Hotey's mind was
working really hard.
        Kit and BR had plenty of business to cover but, funnily, "Mac
Law Daddy" kept asking Code a lot of questions about Flee's family
and the reactions back at home. KC could just relate his own
travails, of course, the girls hearing and snickering, or was it
tittering? Yep, they were titilated. Most definitely.
        Buz, Evan, Sage and others were getting chemically geared
for the day, of course, and talking about the D.C., Sarajevo,
Beijing and elsewhere recent memories and the present and future
possibilities and the $5oM of Gold.
        Well, it was almost an hour later when they heard the
choppers spooling up. In moments, Jul and the men came around
that corner of the porch as they all heard the helos depart and Julian
handed the paper to BR. It was OK, their lawyer immediately
reported, on his cell phone connected to the office. Bingo. They
were fifty million dollars to the good! Again. Almost humdrum, you
might think it sounds. But farther from the truth. They whooped,
hollered, AA-EE'd, ay carumba'd, a la vay'd and yee-hawed like it
was the first time, and passed around the imbibery!
        Kit stood and made a toast to them all, then looked at Jess and
knew. If only he were younger or she were older, or definitely both,
he would have proposed right then and there. A few tears welled up,
and not all his. Everyone saw what was in his heart. A lot of them
hoped he would go ahead and ask anyway, even if she couldn't say
yes. Jess was searching her soul for her answer in case he did. And
Flee was wondering if it would be a double proposal. "...And here's
to Jessy of Sara-Arc-Jevo and Lady Go-Beijing-diva..." Cody
copped out at with another toast.
        Everyone "awwww"'d, cheered or impugned his courage in jest
and drank up and proceeded toasting around the table into the next
hour, making a party of that day, the guys spreading the $25M, after
tax, around.
        They got down to a little business, too. Jess and Kit sent off
their millions to the WPG humanitarian fund and their missions, then
called the missions and home and Rockhead and then Sundance to
tell him that they were running late, which was OK. They talked on
about building a music studio there at Truchas and thought up their
own label - "Rockhead Records" (a real stretch) - and what to put on
Jessy's first album.
        They analyzed her dream next, and what it might have meant,
until Kit told them that a spaceship company had been a very long-
term goal of his if the WPG ever made it into existence.
        "Jeezuz B. God, Cody," Jess reacted, "since when did you
start holding out on me?"
        "I just forgot to mention it to ya, precious. I'm sorry."
        "O yeah...I forgot to tell you I was going to start a SPACEship
company," Flee razzed him for her girl friend.
        "No..." Kit said after laughing along with everyone, "...I mean
I wasn't expecting the WPG to be in so fast...or the money to do it
with...so I don't have everything...done."
        "Is it in Pute?" Jess wondered. Kit gave her the password and
she found the hundreds of pages when she checked.
        "So...what's not done?" she asked.
        "O, just a few thousand details...and the financing, I guess,"
giving his angel a look like 'why would you want to waste your time
with this'.
        "BR?" Flece prompted her new mate to get into it, getting his
mind off what her family was going to do with him when they
stopped by Kentucky.
        He asked, obliviously, "whattaya need, Kit?"
        "Wait a sec..." Kit answered, "I still don't know if it all works...
and how the heck did LE and Swan know about it?!"
        "O, duh-uh," Jess noodled him.
        "Who's LE and Swan?" Gabe asked, all wrapped up in Juli, to
Maria's undying concern.
        "That's the long story, Gabey," Jess smiled over, then got Kit
down into coming up with a ballpark figure, which he did, and BR
said they could swing it. So they moved right on to where to do it
and dovetailed that into a winter village for Rockhead, coming up
with somewhere in the Southern California desert, and assigned
the land search to the Chippys.
        And the day went, giving them perfect weather and total
happiness from everyone up there plus all the critters, music, games,
food and, of course, Frog and other chem. Paradise does not get
any better. Does it?
        It wasn't until late, out around the fire, that Kit quietly asked,
"are you happy, Jess?"
        She looked at him in disbelief, "am I happy?! Are you here,
Hotey?!"
        "Aw, precious, I mean...don't you think you'd be...happier...
leaving me behind?" Welp, there he couldn't take it back said it.
What an idiot, you're probably thinking. He gave a grim-assed look
and avoided her eyes as she accumulated her thought.
        "What the hell drugs have you been doing now?!" She waited
for him to look into her eyes and, when he did, added, "how many
of those wayward synapses do you have left up there?" tapping on
his ole cranium. "...D'ya want me to leave you behind?!"
        "No." There had been no pause. So that was in his favor.
        "Well, where're you goin' with this, then, Buffalo?"
        "You saw those reports this morning. You know you'll be...
safer...away from me."
        "Since WHEN (she yelled under her breath for humor sake)
does my safety take precedence?"
        Flee and BR were listening in, but stayed out of it.
        "All right..." Kit came back, "I'm going to say this once, angel
....If we run into trouble...you promise me, Jess...right now...that
you're going to go when I ask or...."
        "Or what?" She thought he wasn't really serious and just
playing hero.
        "Or..." and could barely bear the pain of his coming words,
"you should go...now," hardly whispering the last, 'go' having hit his
soul so hard that his heart felt a stab that made his spirit wince with
the agony.
        "Have you been talkin' with my folks?!" she came right back,
but realized he was serious. It sunk down and in, hard and true. So
she thought. She knew he wanted a real answer. But she went for
light. She looked at him, stuck her tongue out, then blew softly to
make that flatulation sound.
        He smiled and let out a breath of a chuckle, but serioused
right back up. "I'm serious...dammit. Those are real fuckers out
there."
        "All right...all right," Jess answered him. He saw the
determination in her face and braced for the worst. "I...promise."
She looked into his eyes and saw his tears forming. And that was
because he had never ever even heard of life as good as she was
giving him.
        She kissed away on his face, sopping up those drops, plus
creating a few of her own, and kissed his bullet wound - the one
in front. "Do you still have pain, sweetheart?" checking his sling
for comfort. Everyone there, if they had not already left to give
them privacy, were moisty-eyed in the happiness.
        "Awww...Gaaa..." he just reveled in her sweetness, "it's
about gone, highness, thanks....You really promise?" They were
going through more than what met the ear, eyes to eyes, though
Kit's challenge was indeed foremost.
        "Yes, darling....I really promise." All her kidding was gone.
And she had gotten a feeling that something worse was going to
happen to him and sought refuge in his good arm and body, all
the negative stuff from home rushing into her brain as well, and
the future racing through her consciousness. And yep, she had
promised Kit her heart forever.
        "You do?" he asked.
        "What? Now you don't believe me? Don't press it, Cody,"
she tweaked.
        "Now I believe you," he came back. They held and kissed
each other, working on keeping the tears back, and he added,
"heck...dam...we oughta think up a song." So they did several
before the night was done, to the evening delight of their fellow
campers. Then they just lived the rest of that night away up
there in the clouds, orgying later in the feathers.
        Kit asked her a few questions later about her picture of her
future, but she just answered, "I haven't been thinkin' about the
future lately, Hote...the present is what I had imagined for my
life...actually." He felt the exactly the same. But he figured her
view would change sometime in the future.

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