D I V O R C E by cmsix

Chapter 32

I've heard people bitching about leftovers most of my life. All I can say is that they must just be slow learners. I couldn't think of one thing I'd rather have for lunch today than leftover brisket, hickory smoked ham, and beans. That didn't even bring up the fresh potato salad and deviled eggs Marilyn had somehow found time to teach the others to make this morning.

"Picnic Table," Randy said, just as he sat down to empty his plate.

"It would be a big help, and several of them wouldn't hurt a thing. We've probably got plenty of lumber, we'll just have to dig it out of a trailer," I said.

"Don't even have to do that. I made some angle iron frames and bought some two-by-twelves specially for six of 'em. I'd just let 'em slip my mind," he said.

"Maybe we can cobble a couple up after we have the stock secured," I said, and then went back to eating.

"Move new houses first please," Louise said, and then Marilyn echoed her request.

"I guess that's the next thing on the agenda then, Randy."

"Sounds like orders from above to me too," he said.

We gathered up the noon meals for Charley and Roscoe and then all the men, and Jr, found a place to sit in or on the dually. I drove slowly to keep from spilling any food or coffee but it still only took a couple of minutes to get there.

Charley and Roscoe were happy about the delivery and they sat on their asses to eat while the rest of us looked around. Randy and I both wanted to just jump to the triple-wide houses but that would have been dumb. We could probably get one of the standard fourteen by eighty mobile homes set up this afternoon, especially since we noticed this time that the plumbing stub-outs were already in place.

Poking around our already ready plumbing let us find that our electrical hookup was in place too, for underground service no less. The next question was where it was coming from, and Randy found that.

The service lines originated from a small concrete slab that had come via magic I guess. There was no generating facility there, but a little looking let us know that anchor bolts were here for the generators I'd bought. We decided that was the logical first step.

Back at the get off point we found the trailer with the generator sets inside and Randy grabbed it with the yard mule and took off while I drove the loader with forks on it to the new home site. We both rode back in the mule and parked it.

It always seems like things will go smoothly but they almost never do. We didn't have any real trouble, but we did have to make half-a-dozen trips back and forth for tools and equipment, and then four more to move one of the big propane tanks into place.

Finally, just before dark, we were able to fire up both generators and make power. Of course we didn't even have one damned light bulb to use it on, but that was for tomorrow. We'd stayed so late that we had to use the truck's headlights on the way back.

When we got back we could see that it didn't matter. All the women were gathered around a cooker and a big campfire and the food was ready. Things seemed more pleasant tonight to, since all the braves had their own women to take care of them.

Like every other Caddo Indian I'd met here so far, our new bedmate had a name I couldn't hope to pronounce. It sounded close to Ginny to me, so Ginny she became. Helen, Nancy, Louise, and even Ginny thought it was a grand notion, so they took me to our outdoor bed to celebrate.

For a few minutes I worried about the stock in their new pens, but I gave it up as nonsense. Charley, Roscoe, and their women had walked down there after supper to spend the night. If something came up that they couldn't handle I was sure they'd let us know.

The sun was barely up by the time I woke the next morning, and I wasn't the first. I could see Randy in his pickup going for the night watch crew to bring them back for breakfast. I scrambled out of our bedding and started dragging on clothes, and my mates were right behind me.

They joined Marilyn and the other women near the big fire someone had rejuvenated this morning, and the outdoor cooking was on. Breakfast was nearly ready by the time Randy got back with our watchmen and watchwomen. I gulped down my eggs and sausage and gulped my coffee so fast that Louise gave me a dirty look.

Hell, I was ready to get those damned mobile homes in place so we could quit sleeping on the ground. By now I had faith in the dogs to keep an eye on things during the night and I wanted to be sleeping closer to the stock. Not to mention the fact that I wanted a hot shower, and I didn't want another one in that overgrown phone booth my camper trailer had for the process.

Three hours later we had the single-wides in place and that's when Randy really started showing his worth. He'd done this before and he went directly to work leveling the trailers and putting blocks under them for a stable foundation. I took care of hooking up the plumbing and electric service and by three o'clock they were both ready to be used. We burned up the last of the daylight bringing the camping trailers back and moving things from our small homes into our medium sized homes.

After we had our things out of the campers we turned them over to the Indian helpers. Of course we gave Jr and his girls the biggest extra bedroom in our trailer. I couldn't tell exactly how he felt about it, but I knew his mates-to-be were thrilled.

I needn't have worried about Jr though. After Louise showed him how to work the TV and video tape deck in his new bedroom, he was spellbound. We had to call he and his mates twice for supper, and I was afraid I'd have to start enforcing a Lights Out bedtime.

Louise, Ginny, and Jr's two girls cooked our breakfast the next morning while Helen and Nancy went to a camper each to show the brave's women how to work the appliances. It was only later that I learned there'd been a fix in on the braves.

Louise, Helen, and Nancy had decided to start a new custom among the Caddo. It seems it was well known among my people that the men always took care of the floor cleaning and trash carry out in a house such as the braves were living in now.

I laughed at them when they asked me for backing on this, but I was glad to, and I found out Randy had thought it was funny too. That first day I made sure they saw me coming out of the house with a full trash bag.

To me it was only poetic justice. It always irked me to see the women doing most of the carrying. I know it was a sensible thing when there was likely to be danger about. The men needed their hands free to fight. That knowledge still didn't make it go down all that well with me; after all, there wasn't going to be much fighting inside the campers.

It took us most of the day today to get the triple-wides in place to even think about putting them together. It was a job that had to be done, but it was still a pain. Randy saved my ass again here, since he knew how to do this. It was still tedious to get them close enough to use the things he'd brought for getting them together. We decided to let that slide for a day or two, or more.

We settled into a sort of routine for about two weeks then. Mostly it was moving trailers with the mule, figuring out the best place to put them, and putting concrete pads down for their dolly bar's pads to rest on. Nothing is more of a bother than a loaded trailer whose dolly feet have sunk into soft ground, and I was determined not to enjoy it even once.

We decided that another Bar-B-Que was in order after we finished the last job of moving to our new location. That was moving the small security building and storage building to the back with us. We'd already moved all the reefers, vans, lowboys, and flatbeds and the two small portable buildings were the last thing to go.

We'd saved them for last too, but not because they were going to be trouble, in fact we moved them both in less than an hour one morning. The rest of the day was spent assembling the picnic tables and we were done with that before noon. After lunch was over, Jr, Louise, and I hopped into my truck and headed for George's place.

We drove right up to it as if we owned the place, and I guess that Jr did in a way. George and his woman came forward shortly after we'd unassed the pickup and Jr started in with their lingo right away. I didn't have any damned idea what he was telling George and his mother but they both started smiling about it nearly at once.

Everyone in camp was smiling later when Louise told them to come down a little before noon tomorrow for another Bar-B-Que. The way she said it sounded a little funny to me, but hell, I still couldn't speak Caddoan.

We left after about an hour and went home. I decided that late was better than never and took the afternoon to teach Jr how to hang onto a horse.

I'd been telling him about it some every night, but had never let him aboard one. In fact, telling him was a job, since it involved Louise, Nancy, or Helen to help translate and to teach him some English along the way.

I'd been taking an hour or two every day to try out different horses and had located the one I wanted Jr to start on. It was an older gelding, one that had been relieved of any parts of spirited. It was even a little cold mouthed, but before I let Jr climb on, I gave it about a thirty minute warm up.

First things first, I unsaddled the horse and then helped Jr figure out how that went. Helen did the translating and the lesson ran a little longer than I thought it should have, so I had him unsaddle it and we spent some time for him to learn how to put the bridle on correctly.

We'd been over it in explanations around the kitchen table before, with one of the girls translating and me drawing pictures. Still it was different when you were actually doing it. Thankfully Jr seemed to do better with this part.

After he had the bridle on in good shape, I had him saddle the gelding again, with no hints or pointers from Helen or I this time. Damned if he didn't do better without us bothering him while he was at it.

I caught up a gelding for myself then and made Jr watch me saddle mine. Then we were off. We spent an hour just walking, and I could tell after the first little bit that Jr wanted to go faster. I didn't let him though, because he still had plenty to learn about the walk.

The hardest thing about training a rider is to put gentle hands on them. If you saw on the bit you're going to cause the horse pain and discomfort. If you ever need to depend on it for something important that kind of thing will bite you in the ass right away.

If you are hurting a horse and end up taking a quick exit off its back, you are going to have hell getting hold of the reins again, at the very least. It's always the best policy to make the horse's experience as comfortable as you reasonably can. That doesn't mean that you can let them do what they want, but it does mean that it is unadvised to make things painful for them.

Jr seemed to be a natural at it. He didn't do any yanking or hard pulling and he didn't keep a death grip on the reins. He gave the gelding slow and gentle cues with the reins and his feet and we got along well.

Trotting was next, and though Jr was anxious, and had at least heard what it was going to be like, he still wasn't prepared for the jarring, even though he knew it was coming.

Western riders do not post a trot; they have to learn to ride it. I'm sure posting looks impressive while fox hunting or prancing around in a show ring, but it can end up earning you a long walk in a real life situation.

Riding a trot on a western trained horse gives you a more stable seat and keeps your ass and the saddle in constant contact. You don't put your weight on your feet and bounce your way along. You bounce all right, but you bounce with the horse.

To ride a trot you take most of your weight off the stirrups and grip with your thighs. It's almost as if you are trying to put more of your weight into the saddle. You don't want to clear the seat on the up bounce because you need your ass on the leather. Western horses don't always make slow and gentle moves, sometimes they need to change directions without giving you any warning; believe me, you want your butt against the saddle if they do.

Yes, this is harder on the rider, and yes, when you're learning to do it your legs, especially the inner thighs, get sore as hell. Nobody said being a cowboy, or an Indian, was a walk in the park. Sore thigh muscles beat a broken leg any damned day of the week.

If you can't learn to ride a trot instead of posting, just go ahead an buy an English Saddle and ride for pleasure, because you're never going to be able to get much work done from a horse's back.

The reason a trot is so important, for a working horse, is that it is the gait that lets the horse cover the most ground in the least amount of time, generally. You can gallop and get there faster, but only for much shorter distances and with much greater risk.

If you're going any distance, a trotting horse will beat a galloping one there every time, because the one being made to gallop will have to stop for rest much more often. You can ride a good horse to death, isn't just an old saying, it's a fact.

Horses are wonderful, fairly intelligent animals. Unfortunately, they aren't as smart as mules, and they won't stop trying to run when the rider is asking them too. They will literally run themselves to death. If you think mules aren't smarter than horses, try to run one of them to death sometime. Believe me, the mule will never be in danger.

At any rate, after the first ten minutes Jr had caught on to the feel of riding the trot, it would just be practice to get better from here on out.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking and trotting. Jr was nearly as tired as the gelding by the time we stopped, unsaddled our mounts, and turned them back into their big pasture. I laughed to myself about the shape of his gait on the way back to the house, and I warned him that he was going to be saddle sore tomorrow.

The next morning I had to pay a little for the excellent things Louise, Helen, Nancy, and Ginny did for me, both in bed and out of it. I had to vacuum the carpet. They had contrived a way to get a couple of the men to come into our trailer and see me doing it. It seemed there was some resistance to the floor-cleaning scheme.

I don't know what they had called Charley and Roscoe over for, but you could tell they were amazed when they saw me running the Kirby. After they got control of their wits, Louise and Nancy explained something to them and then sent them off. I hoped the demo had worked.

Ginny came over and took the vacuum away from me after that, and sent me to the table for a sweet roll and some coffee.

"I thought that cleaning the floor was a man's job," I asked, after swallowing the first bite.

"Brave's job," Louise said, "Not chief's job."

"Does that mean you think I'm the chief?"

"Sure. Chief this tribe anyway. No other Chief here," Helen said, and then they laughed at me.

"Eat up, Chief," Louise said, sliding another hot sweet roll onto my plate, while Nancy filled my coffee cup again.

Jr had been visiting some of the men in one of the campers, but he came back into ours then and seemed like he wanted to take the vacuum away from Ginny.

Louise set him straight though and then she told me what she'd said.

"I tell Jr floors not Chief's job. Not Chief's son's job either. I tell how we fool others," she said.

It was easy to see that Jr thought it was a grand joke too, because he could barely stand for laughing so hard, he nearly lost his breath.

"Just like father," Helen said, "Jr love joke."

"Show Bill Chief face, Jr," Nancy said.

And he did it. One second he was laughing, and the next he put a somber look on his face like the one George always used when we were trading for something. I howled and all four of the girls laughed too, then Jr lost it and joined in.

Poor Randy. Marilyn was the only woman living in their trailer and that meant he really was the master of the floors, bathrooms too unless I missed my guess. I'd never heard him complain about it the first time though, so I guess there were other rewards for a job well done.

It was about ten AM by now, so Jr and I went out to saddle a couple of broncs. His legs hadn't given him nearly as much trouble this morning as I'd expected them too, but he had noticed the difference. Maybe all the exercise he normally got had muted the effect.

Jr and I were walking the horses around, and Randy came out later to join us. We were basically just mounted to look good and impressive when our guests started arriving.

We trotted the horses down our road toward the old arrival site, nearly to where the parking lot was going to be in later years, and then we turned around and headed back. It was the first time I'd really done this, ridden up the road horseback with nothing important on my mind. This time I finally saw in my mind what the large open spot in nearly the center of our site was for.

We were supposed to build a house there, a big one, most probably it would be a log house, and I already knew we had some hellacious logs available.

"Randy, look at the open spot."

"I already am, and I'm getting the weirdest feeling that we should build a giant log house there," he said.

"Me too, and at the same time. Damned, that's going to be a job."

"It won't be that bad, after all, we don't have to use axes, and we've got plenty of equipment to move the logs and to place 'em. Hell, we've even got enough lumber so we'll only have to use logs for the outer walls," he said.

"You're right. Once we get four walls up the rest will be mostly like regular carpentry."

"Yeh, but I've never done any of that," he said.

"Don't worry, I have, and we've got plenty of hands to help us."

"If you say so, but what about all these trailers?" he asked.

"We'll still need them for a long time to come. It'll take over a year to cut the logs and get them debarked and dried by hand, not to mention pouring a slab that big. Hell, we'll have to teach our helpers to finish concrete."

"You're gonna pour a slab for a log house?" he asked.

"Hell yeh, I don't know about you, but I haven't ever found a damned thing I like about a dirt floor."

"I was thinking more like a normal wooden foundation," he said.

"We could do it that way, but it would eat up a lot of the lumber we have, and for nothing much. Better to save the lumber and pour concrete. Hell, we don't even have to form it up much, digging will be most of the work, and then we can just start pouring the mud. It ain't like we need to worry about the cost of the mix."

"I hadn't thought of that, but you're right. One thing's certain, we're not short of sand, gravel, or Portland," he said.

I spotted movement on the trail from George's place then and we all turned that way. Sure enough, George and his folks were coming our way. We rode out to meet them, letting Jr take the lead.

Of course there was a mini-powwow when Jr reached George, and everyone had to stop for it. Randy and I couldn't understand hardly a word, but we watched it all and pretended to know what was going on. In a few minutes Jr rode back over to us.

"We go Louise, tell her they come?" Jr asked.

"We'll end up in hot water if we don't," I said, and we headed that way.

It was a needless worry, as I figured it might be. Louise and the troops were ready and waiting, with food, coffee, and picnic tables.

The three of us unsaddled our horses and turned them back in with the others, then made our way toward the food. This meal was going to go a lot more smoothly since we now had the picnic tables to use. George was at a table already with medicine man so Randy, Jr, and I joined them. It wasn't long before food arrived.

Right away I could see that some cultural manipulation was taking place. At the last get together the men had all been mostly sitting together and the women served and then ate in a group of their own while keeping an eye on their man to make sure he didn't need something.

This time all the men that lived with us, for the time being at least, were at tables and places were left for their women to eat with them. The women still did the serving of course, since it was well known that men could not be trusted handling anything as important as food.

Worrying about the corruption of the normal native manners was not high on my agenda. I confined my deliberations to consuming the food. Potato salad and deviled eggs were part of the menu today too, and surprisingly, Fritos. They were very well received.

After the meal Jr and I gave George a tour of the place so far, and I noticed that Louise was giving George's woman a show and tell of her own. They came over to join us after a few minutes and Louise took up the translating. Jr had been doing his best so far, but his English was behind the curve when compared to Louise's.

George was still curious about the horses and the cattle but not so much with more questions. I got the notion that he just liked to watch them. I guess it is a novelty for someone whose only normal look at animals is usually fleeting. The pigs were also favorites for him. He couldn't believe their increase in size since we came.

He asked Louise a question and she asked me.

"What pigs eat?"

"Anything, or almost anything. We mostly feed these food we brought with us, but they can take care of any leftovers and will be glad of it."

"Eat leftover Bar-B-Que?" she asked.

"Yes, or anything else. If we catch too many fish, they'd eat the extra. If we kill a snake or wolf, we can throw it in their pen and they'll eat it."

"Alligator?" she asked, after using the Caddo word first.

"I'm sure they'd eat it if we killed it and threw it in there. In fact, they will eat humans if they get a chance."

"Eat us?" she asked, clearly not believing it.

"If you go in the pen and lie down they will eat you, of course I don't thing Dooder, Geraldine, Margie, and Calvin will let them," I said.

She explained it to George and I could tell that he was having as hard a time believing it as she was. What the hell? I didn't really care if they believed it or not. We'd get a chance to show them sooner or later. Pigs weren't exactly hunters or anything, but as far as I knew they would eat any animal that moved slowly enough for them to take a bite of.

I decided to give a demonstration if I could. I called Randy and Jr over and we caught up three horses for another little ride, taking rifles in our saddle scabbards.

We rode to the river, nearly three quarters of a mile, and we were in luck. There was a small gator sunning itself on the bank and I was able to take a shot before it thought it was in danger. It only took a minute to get off my horse, loop my rope around its head and mount up again, to drag it back to the party.

Someone must have given the word that a big demonstration was about to go down, and since George was near the pigpen, everyone had correctly assumed that the show would be near him.

Randy and Jr helped me throw the dead gator over the fence when we arrived, although Jr's help was mostly for show. Anytime I threw something over the fence the pigs assumed it was for their consumption and at least came to investigate. They did it now too, and within ten minutes they were trying to root each other out of the way, hoping for a more tasty bite.

After the pig's meal was firmly in progress George asked Louise something and she asked me.

"What if alligator live when you throw in pen?"

"I wouldn't be touching a live alligator, but if a live one did get in there how long do you think it would last against so many pigs?"

George grinned after Louise translated. For myself I wasn't sure that the pigs would try tackling a live gator, but I figured they would. After all, the gator could only attack one pig at a time, and if it killed one while the others were killing it, they would just eat the one it killed also. Pigs didn't turn down a free meal.

George asked Louise something else then.

"When we fish again?" Louise asked, translating.

"I hadn't even thought about it, but it couldn't hurt anything. Maybe we can do it sometime next week. We're going to start putting the big houses together tomorrow," I said, and Louise clued George in. It made him grin widely.

Most of the rest of the afternoon went like that. We walked all around the place with George asking a question every now and then.

About five o'clock Nancy called out to Louise and it was time for another meal. I hadn't expected the afternoon serving but I was always happy when the time to eat came around. It was practically a repeat of noon, and there was nothing wrong with that.