D I V O R C E by cmsix

Chapter 21

I cut up the small pines and stacked a row of wood right at the back of the truck's bed, until I had all I thought would ride without falling off. When I took it over where they were working, damned if they weren't done with the hard part, for today anyway. They were going to let the carcasses hang overnight so the meat would cool a little and Louise let me know that I had way more than plenty of wood already.

After unloading the wood I'd cut, and scattering it into six piles in a large circle around the girl's workplace, I started small fires near each woodpile. They were to keep nosey critters away during the night. Louise, Helen, and Nancy were down to dealing with the livers, hearts, kidneys and no telling what other parts they wanted to do whatever with.

They also had the skins hanging so they'd dry a little bit too I guess. My spirits had received a big boost when I noticed that the new long skirted get ups they'd traded for were off them now and they were back in their familiar nearly naked buckskin mini-dresses.

We had supper a couple of hours later and they were all amazed that I didn't want any of the delicacies they'd prepared. I scarfed up the corn, and peas but the heart, liver, and kidney dishes were not for me. I was worried for a second there that they were going to make me eat it, and I attempted a lot of explaining that it wasn't the cooking but the fact that I didn't care for those particular parts. Actually didn't care for didn't even nearly explain my feelings, but I made sure not to get carried away with it. In the end it seemed to come out ok.

I went out and put some water in the U-Haul for the calves shortly before we went to bed. We just didn't have time to do anything more for them tonight and they'd have to tough it out.

Bed was a little of a misstatement tonight though, since we didn't sleep inside. The girls spread out some of the straw and dried grass that had been gathered for the bricks and then put bedding on it for our repose. We took turns staying awake to keep an eye on things and keep the fires going. Helen made sure we had a big pot of coffee to help the one on duty keep their eyes open.

Even though we were a little short on sleep the girls still hit the ground running the next morning. They had the brick mud mixed before I'd even finished my oat meal and I barely got to help pouring the new batch, then they were right back at the meat processing. We ended up with so much meat to smoke that I was worried about the small rafters it would have to hang from.

Since we had let the little ones out of the trailer first thing, we stored the cut up meat in there temporarily while we went to cut some bigger trees to install for hanging the meat. I didn't want to cut into the walls that were already up and sealed so I cut cross beams and then post to stand them on, notching out a V in one end of each post for the cross beam to rest in, and notching short pieces to go between each post at the top and the bottom to keep them from falling over.

All that worked well and the calves spent a busy day munching and grazing around and minding their own business. I did see that all three girls made it a point to go approach the calves occasionally and it looked to me like they were trying to make pets of them. Hell, it wouldn't hurt anything.

Most of my day was spent trying to rearrange things we'd had to remove from the trailer, doing my best to get it out of the way while keeping it close by at the same time. For some reason Louise didn't want to put it back in the trailer. She couldn't make it plain to me what she wanted but I knew it involved the calves somehow.

About an hour before sunset it all became clear. Nancy, Helen, and Louise made me understand that they wanted a piece of sash cord each and by example they let me know it needed to be about ten feet long. I cut it for them, and since it was nylon, I melted the ends into a glob so the cord wouldn't unravel. I saw them trying to tie a loop in one end and showed them how to tie a bowline so it wouldn't pull itself closed.

They pulled a good one on me then by going over to a calf and threading the free end of their short ropes through the bowline and placing it around the calves' necks. It only took them a few minutes to make the calves understand that they were supposed to follow along on the rope. They ended up loading every calf back into the trailer for the night. I thought it was a damned good idea and it would keep them safe and wouldn't let them wander off.

The next day was more work around the home place but it was much less hectic. We did nearly lose one calf though. It wanted to stay near the camper and kept getting into things, finally fucking around and knocking over a stack of my Long Necks, I started to shoot it. I didn't, but I gave it a serious cussing and Nancy, Helen, and Louise tried their best not to laugh at me. They also made it a point to discourage the calves from hanging around too close to the camper.

I had to face it, sooner or later I was going to have to build a pen for the little bastards, and it was nobody's fault but my own. It had been my bright idea to cabbage onto a miniature cattle herd. If I was going to be a buffalo rancher I'd just have to start building fence. I wouldn't have minded so damned bad if I had a pair of posthole diggers. Oh well, it wasn't like I'd have to fence forty acres.

We had been spending about an hour a night on English lessons and the girls were getting pretty good at understanding me when I made sure to keep it simple. That night I made a drawing of a two rail fence and then sketched off a couple of the calves in a small pen. My lovelies were spellbound by my artistic skills but Louise pointed out the error of my ways right away.

"Calves not get out, but wolf bear cat get in," she said, and damned if she wasn't right.

There weren't any real worries during the day, since we were almost always here, and the calves had quickly lost interest in getting near the camper. Our main concern was for something attacking them at night.

I canceled the plans for a fence and we decided to build the calves a sort of log barn that would let us lock everything else out at night. Louise made a real breakthrough when she suggested building it even bigger and with two separate sections, or rooms, and storing all our other crap in one of them.

We got started the next day and it turned out easier than I thought. It was sure as hell more satisfying than trying to dig postholes with a round point shovel.

We weren't after a quick and dirty job this time so we selected the trees much more carefully. It took some traveling but we cut oaks for this project, selecting the straightest and most uniform ones we could find. We were going for about a twelve to fourteen inch diameter and with all the ones we had to choose from they weren't hard to find.

That was good, because we needed fifty-six logs for the walls, including the center divider. It took us nearly two weeks to get them found, felled, and dragged back to the site.

After the logs were ready we spent a day picking and preparing a level spot for our construction and then it was notching, trimming, and placing the logs. When we were done we had a very strong rectangle, sixteen by thirty two feet with a center divider that made each section sixteen by sixteen. All we needed now was a roof.

I still didn't have any good ideas about roofing material and I couldn't waste the few remaining tarps for this; there weren't enough left to cover it anyway. I knew generally how to split cedar shakes but I didn't have the proper tools and I thought it was too much work anyway. It turned out that Louise, Nancy, and Helen knew exactly what to do.

The huts at George's camp, and I guess for most of the Caddos anywhere around here, were covered with grass tied into bundles somehow. Of course the roof had to be steep for them to turn water but it would have to be enough. I collected much smaller trees to frame for the roof and they started cutting, and tying the shingles.

One more week and we were done. I'd even been able to make fairly solid doors by lashing sapling-sized oaks to cross pieces. I didn't have anything I thought was suitable for hinges, so I just cut notches into the logs and we put the doors in place at night and fastened them with two-inch diameter dowels. I made the dowels the old fashioned way, by whittling.

The calves didn't care much for their new home at first, in fact they didn't want to go in, but the girls made them. They seemed in better moods once they realized that they hadn't had to walk up that damned ramp. They'd always hated that part. I even put one of the big stainless beer cooler pots in there and filled it with water for them. Since we didn't have any hay anyway I hadn't bothered with hayracks.

We all felt relieved that night when we ate supper and went to bed. The job was done and everything seemed to be working out fine. We were planning to go up to George's camp the next morning and spend at least half a day just fucking around. I think that Louise wanted to see about picking up some more of the things she'd already traded for and I knew she intended to take one of the cooler pots and try to trade it to Junior's mother, after my and George's approval of course.

We'd just finished English for tonight and the girls were back in the bedroom watching a movie. I was working on my wish list again. It had grown long and detailed by now but that didn't stop me.

Out of nowhere I had that voice in my head again.

"In three days you go back for two weeks, all four of you. Be back here on time. Only the night will have passed here."

That was it. Nothing else. No other information, and no suggestions. I was shocked. I guess I shouldn't have been, since I'd been working on my list for weeks, but I'd never really thought it would be worth anything. I did it now mainly as a hobby.

Maybe one of my hobbies was finally going to pay off, but I had a hell of a lot of work to do in the next three days. I'd more or less made a game of carefully writing down everything I could think of that I wanted, but since I'd never really expected to get another shopping trip, I hadn't paid attention to what any of it would cost.

I mean, I had a pretty good bit of money in the bank when I'd come from but it wasn't an inexhaustible supply. I'd have to prioritize my list and then fill it, as I was able. Oh, I'd beg borrow or steal, no doubt about that, but I still knew that my wanter would outstrip my getter's ability in no time flat.

It hit me then, I needed to get the girls prepared as soon as possible. It would be a hell of a shock to them and they needed all the warning they could get. I nearly made a pot of coffee but decided not to. I didn't want to get them wired up before bedtime. I took a different tack and decided that a little George Dickel and coke would be good for what ailed them. Thank God we'd been working on their English.

The movie wound down about half an hour later and they all came out, intending to get me for bed. I asked them to sit at the table and then made their drinks. Of course Louise knew what George Dickel was by now and she didn't really approve of it either, though she didn't give me any grief over having a shot or two. I got it down and dug out three canned cokes and then got them glasses and put a few ice cubes in each.

"I have something very important to tell all of you and I want you to each drink the drink I'm going to make you, even if you don't like it. It will settle you down a little and I'm afraid you might be upset when I tell you this," I said.

In retrospect I guess it was a little stupid of me to make it sound so ominous, but maybe it was the right thing after all. My little speech had upset them, and no doubt it was only from not having a clue. At least they didn't squawk about their drinks.

"In three days we are going back to where I came from. I can't really explain it to you, but you will be surprised and there will be many more people than you ever imagined. We are going to get things that will make it easier for us here. While we are there, if you see something you want you must tell me and I will see if I can get it for you. It has to be something we can bring back here though," I said.

I just want to say that it was positively amazing to me that they had learned so much English already and that they could form the few words they knew into so many different questions. I also figure that I might have made a miscalculation with the drinks, because it seemed to help loosen their tongues. What I'd expected to be a small announcement from me turned into a two hour grilling by them. There was never a man more ready to go to bed.

Is it some natural thing that women are born with, that cleaning thing? The girls fed me just after dawn the next morning, we made our bricks, turned out the calves, and then they pressed me into moving service.

I'm sure I put everything we owned into the storage side of our barn while the girls did their best to wear out the few washrags and towels we had. That damned camper trailer shined when they let me back inside for lunch and I'm sure if I'd have owned a vacuum cleaner they would have sucked the rug completely away with it.

It also turned out triggering a thought that relieved me of one of my biggest worries. I'd be buying a hell of a lot more than I could ever get in a U-Haul or even a dozen. I'd been worrying how I was going to get it all down here on the day before we left. As I was trucking things out to the storage barn and the U-Haul that we now had available again since the calves had their own home now, trucking flashed back across my mind.

Of course! I'd have a trucking company bring my things down. The parking lot we'd be in when we got back uptime was fairly large and it had never had over two or three vehicles in it anytime I'd been there. My first move would be to go inside, find the convenience store/cafe's owner and try to rent space to park trailers. If that worked I'd call a big trucking company, probably Schneider, and line up a few fifty-three foot box vans to be filled soon.

I'd be more than happy to pay extra for having them sit a few days until I could get them unloaded. Hell the drivers could drop the trailers and go on their merry way. As big as Schneider was they'd surely be sending different drivers to pick them up when I called to say they were empty.

Of course the drivers would have a hell of a time finding the empties if they ever got empty. Even Schneider doesn't have directions back to seventeen twenty. Little Donny Schneider, or someone, was going to wonder where those trailers went.

Shit, that wasn't all either. Reefers. Reefers would be even better. I could order a few truckloads of beef, pork, and such from Excel Meats and after eating it all, if we ever did, I'd have giant refrigerators or freezers. If I could afford it and that was the rub. I'd been pissing in the wind thinking about truckloads of meat. More like one truckload would be all I could scrape up the cash for, if that much.

It was still a workable plan though, it would just take some legwork, or phone work, and it looked like I would have time to spare this time.

The girls left me alone for the rest of the day while I worked at the kitchen table going over and over my list, ordering it and reordering it until I'd nearly used up the whole damned notebook.

I know it seems that it would just get confusing to go back over the same things but it didn't for me. The more times I wrote things down and went over them the more familiar with my plan I got. By the time our three days were up and we were due to wake uptime the next morning I was pretty sure I could do the whole deal from memory if I needed to.