D I V O R C E by cmsix

Chapter 34

Somehow all the girls were out of bed, dressed, and even cooking before I woke the next morning. It was obvious they thought it was oh so funny, but I ignored the teasing, did my bathroom business, and got dressed.

When I passed by Jr's room Louise told me to wake him up. It was then I noticed that Jr's two playmates were in the kitchen laughing at me, and probably Jr, also. What the hell, I didn't care if they had a laugh on me, especially since they were cooking while they laughed.

Jr didn't seem any the worse for the wear of a few extra minutes of sleep either, and by the time he joined me at the table I'd already poured down one cup of coffee and was working on my second.

I didn't doubt I was missing the significance of the day but it just didn't matter to me right now. The girls began serving some type of celebratory meal and whatever the occasion, I was all for it. We were having bacon, sausage, biscuits, grits, and even eggs; the latter being some type of preserved scrambled eggs, of course. I knew that Marilyn's chickens were doing well, but they weren't old enough to start laying yet.

I wondered about the extra food this morning and also about the happier than normal attitude but not too much. I didn't want to spoil anything, at least not before I'd eaten all I could possibly hold.

Jr finally clued me in after breakfast, when the girls wouldn't even let us take care of our sham trash duties.

"They are happy tribe move here. Very happy. You must talk good. Make George move," he said.

"I will," I told him, but knew very well I couldn't fail, since Louise would be doing all the talking. Hell, I could say anything and George would be none the wiser. Louise would straighten it out.

Speaking of George, and Ouida too, here they came. It seemed a little early to me but it didn't matter. George had fishing on his mind and I figured we could provide. But first, we needed some coffee.

Luckily Louise had thought of that already and the giant restaurant grade coffee pot was out on a picnic table. George and his merry band had come prepared too. They were all carrying the insulated mugs we'd given them earlier. I started serving right away.

Helen came out the door carrying something a few minutes later, followed by Nancy, Ginny, and then Louise. They were bringing trays of sweet rolls for our guest. I was going to make sure I got my share too. We ended up spending about half an hour sipping coffee and making the treats disappear.

"How 'bout some fishin' now," Randy said, when things hit a slow spot.

"Fine with me. What about it George, are you ready for some fishing?" I asked him, and even Jr could translate well enough by now to get a grin out of George.

Randy surprised us all then, with his patched together multi-boat trailer. He must have cobbled it up after sundown yesterday. He had the bass boat's trailer attached to his pickup and had welded some short extensions off the back of it to mount two more trailer knobs. Two of the aluminum boats were attached to these.

"Damn, what a rig" I said.

"Well, I wouldn't want to pull it downtown, but it will do for a drive to the river, besides there ain't any towns around here. Hell, I can even hook two more of the small trailers to the big one if I need to," he said.

"Well don't stand around bragging about it, head for the water."

The rest of us walked, except Marilyn. She was actually brave enough to ride with Randy in that contraption. It held up well though, and by the time we reached the river the aluminum boats were in the water and Randy was backing the single trailer in to unload the bass boat.

At least I'd had sense enough to bring a rifle this morning, and I know Randy had been planning to do the same. If we didn't let a bunch of fish get away downstream we probably wouldn't be bothered by any gators, but if we were, I wanted to be ready for them this time.

Sky and his crew went directly to the boats, put on their life vest, and pushed off. They paddled downstream a little and waited.

I urged George and Ouida up near the bank and my girls and Jr came along to. When Randy was in place, he signaled the catch boats, nodded at me, and then cranked the handle, fairly hard and long if you ask me.

Thirty seconds later the fish started floating up and it was all Sky and the guys could do to gather them up. They had one designated paddler in each boat and the two in with him worked the dip nets, at a frantic pace I might add.

George, Ouida, and all the rest that hadn't seen this little trick were stupefied. They just couldn't believe it was happening, or at least they couldn't understand how it could be happening. To them it was clearly magic.

That didn't mean they weren't happy to see the fish and when the boats had done their duty there was plenty of help to move the catch into the big baskets Randy had brought for the purpose. Louise explained to them that we wanted to clean the fish down near the pigpen this time, and everyone seemed fine with it.

Once the capture boats were unloaded, Randy moved up stream a little and cranked again, though not as long this time. I don't know what the cause was, but even more fish came to the top this time, and even one small gator was among them.

For a second I wanted them to catch the stunned gator so I could take it back for a pet, then my senses returned somehow. Gators would never make good pets, no matter how small. Randy told them to just let it float away.

After two more rounds of this I figured we had about seven or eight hundred fish to clean and we decided it was plenty. This was the way to fish though. Hell, getting the boats to the river and back from it took more time than the actual fishing did. Still, it was a lot less bother than stringing a net and waiting and it beat hell out of a trotline. Pole fishing didn't even enter the picture. We weren't fishing for the sport of it, we wanted the food.

After we got back to our place, while Randy was putting the boats away and most of the others were cleaning fish, Louise organized a powwow between George, Ouida, me, and herself. We settled down in the kitchen of our triple and had some more coffee.

There was no way I had any idea about how to say what I needed to say. So I just explained to George that we felt it was dumb for the two bunches of us to live so spread out. I explained the advantages of working together and also the advantages of the tools and equipment we had now. Louise nudged me after I'd gone on long enough, and I stopped to let her translate as in tell it the way it would mean something.

Of course, dumbass redneck that I was, I could barely understand a word of what she was saying. I'd given up learning their language months ago, so I just sat there like a lump and watched facial expressions.

Even I could see that Ouida was convinced already. George looked mostly in favor of what he was hearing also, but it was apparent that he hadn't made up his mind yet. Then Louise finished and after a few minutes George let us know what he thought of it, or at least he let Louise know.

When George wound down, Louise turned to me with a couple of questions from George.

"He think good idea also. He want to know if he still be chief with you. You chief and he chief together. He want to know where he live too."

"Did you tell him we would build him a house out of logs?" I asked her.

"Yes and he like. Want to know where he live until then."

"Hell, if he doesn't want to live in his hut he can live with us. The empty bedroom is nearly as big as ours. I can't run Randy and Marilyn out of their trailer. If he doesn't want to live in our other bedroom I guess we can run the guys out of one of the singles," I said, confused a little because this is something I hadn't considered.

Louise turned back to George and she barely got two sentences out before a wide grin nearly broke George's face, and the one on Ouida wasn't any slouch either. Louise stopped at that and George spit out something that was short and must have been sweet since Louise smiled too.

"George want to live here now, and in big house when we build it. He say he no need separate house," Louise said.

I grinned like a fool myself. The only reason I'd suggested the separate log house was because I hoped to placate George with it. Shit we could build something else with the time we'd save by not building him a cabin. I stuck out my hand to shake.

"Deal?" I asked.

"Deal," George said, and shook my hand, after Louise had explained what deal meant, or at least I thought that's what she told him.

It was all hands outside after that, to make the happy announcement. Jr looked like he was shickled titless about the whole thing and even Randy and Marilyn were grinning, even though I knew they couldn't understand any more of what George was saying than I could.

There was a big surprise after he stopped talking though, since every one of the women quit cleaning fish and took off walking back toward their camp.

"What's the deal, Louise?" I asked her.

"George tell women to go fetch camp and tell men to clean fish," she said.

"Ask him if they can wait until we can get a few trucks and the U-Haul to go bring their stuff here," I said, and she did.

George called a halt after Louise talked to him and the women stopped.

"Hey, there's no need to fuck with that U-haul. It's got crap in it anyway, and we'd have to unload it first. I'll get that small loader and put on the fifthwheel attachment I made. The mule would probably do it, but the loader won't get stuck," Randy said.

"Hell, go to it. Marilyn and I can take the women up there in the pickups," I said, and that's what happened.

I took my Silverado and Marilyn drove Randy's pickup. Of course most of the women had to ride back in the beds, but we drove slowly so it wouldn't be too rough. Half the way up there I was pissed that I hadn't bought a used school bus. I should have thought of one, but hadn't.

When we arrived the women bailed out of the trucks and swarmed their huts like a bunch of ants. It mystified me at first that they weren't taking them down, they were just emptying them. It made sense after a while though. What was the point of taking them down and then trying to put them back up again? They were made mostly of saplings and grass. Hell, they could just make new ones, and it would probably even be easier.

Everyone but me was surprised when Randy came up with an empty box van. It didn't take them long to recover though, and to start putting things in it. They had their whole damn camp inside it in less than two hours, minus the huts of course. They even brought the stones they had gathered to go around their fires. We had everyone and everything back home before it was time to start cooking lunch.

Luckily for the men, they had the fish cleaned by the time we got back. Of course, since George and Ouida had stayed, there hadn't been any chance of slacking off. George was ready for some fish and he didn't want the scales attached when he started chowing down.

An hour later we were sitting down to fried fish, hushpuppies, and french fries and damned if it wasn't delicious. You can't beat fresh fish and they didn't get any fresher than what we had today. I know that Randy wanted a long neck just as bad as I did, but we didn't dare even think of having one.

Apparently Jr had taken the time to clue George in on the trash bag joke, because as soon as the women started cleaning up after the meal, George grabbed a big bag to do his duty, with Randy, Jr, and I. Most of the new men didn't have any idea what was happening and I saw George giving them several hard looks. Finally he turned to a bunch of gawkers and shouted something their way. They hauled ass to help the women who were unloading bedding and other things from the trailer we'd brought from their camp. When the men were out of sight, he laughed like hell.

Louise was nearby so I asked her what George had said.

"He tell they act like worthless sons with unknown fathers. Say them help women with moving or go stay at last camp alone," she said, laughing but trying not to let it get away from her.

"Tell him that translates into Lazy Bastard in my lingo," I said, and she did.

Jr, George, and I went into the house to get out of sight. George and Jr broke down laughing again as they got inside. Every time one of them got hold of himself the other would start in again and then both of them were lost for another minute or two. The reason they finally got control was they were out of breath.

Ouida, Louise, Helen, Nancy, and Ginny came in a few seconds later and then Jr's two girls did too. Ouida scolded George and Jr while the rest giggled but tried to stay quiet about it. The out of breath shape of George and Jr, plus the tears streaming down their faces was a dead giveaway to what they'd been up to.

I guess Jr promised his mother that he and his father would try to be good, because she let it slide. Louise took her over to the kitchen to explain the workings of the appliances. Jr took George into his room to show him the wonders of TV, and I heard Star Trek's opening theme start about a minute later. I went back outside to track down Randy.

He was wandering around outside trying to look busy, but wasn't really doing anything. I grabbed a mug of coffee and invited him to sit down for a talk. We had to decide what to start on next.

It was obvious that food was not going to be a problem, since we could live off fish if we didn't do anything else. We weren't going to, but there it was.

"We need to build a small building so we can train the hands to finish concrete. What do we need in a moderate size that we can pour a slab for," Randy asked.

"Damned if I can think of what to do first. I guess we could just pour one for practice and break it up later if we had to," I said.

"We could, but I don't think we need to go that far. Surely you can think of something useful to practice on. Something that would still pass muster even if the floor wasn't just right," he said.

"Well, what we really need to do is ask the women. I'll bet they can think of something right off the bat."

He fetched Marilyn and I went back into the house to let the girls know what was coming up. Randy and Marilyn showed up ten minutes later and we told them what we needed to do and asked for suggestions about a useful building that wouldn't be too large.

Hell, we should have asked them first. It didn't take them five minutes to decide that they needed a moderate sized kitchen building, and after a little discussion we decided to make it large enough to include the walk-in freezers and butcher shop setups we'd bought. Nothing to it, but some measuring and a little layout work.

Halfway through our planning session Randy slapped his forehead and said "Shit."

"What's the matter Randy?" I asked.

"I just realized what our first concrete job has to be, and it ain't a kitchen," he said.

"Well what is it going to be?"

"A bridge," he said.

"What do we need with a bridge?" I asked, and then thought of it myself.

Our lovely wide creek was between where the concrete plant had been put down and where we were. The mixer trucks would never be able to drive over through the creek. Hell, they were going to be hard pressed to travel on the dry ground around here. A loaded mixer carried a lot of weight on just ten wheels.

"Have you ever built a bridge, or even worked on a bridge job?" I asked.

"No."

"Me neither, this is going to take some figuring and planning," I said.

"That's a no shitter. I know we've got plenty to build one out of, we'll just have to figure out how to go about it," he said.

"Well if that ain't a pisser I don't know of one. Why don't we go take a look at things?"

We adjourned to the outside then and walked over to the plant, wading the creek. I didn't even give a shit about getting my boots and pants wet since I was so disappointed about having to build something as utilitarian as a damned bridge.

That didn't really make sense though. I should have been jumping for joy about what I had instead of pissing and moaning about what I didn't have, so I tried convincing myself I was just mad about not thinking of it in the first place.

At the plant we saw that things weren't going to be as bad as we'd thought. Our mysterious friends had provided a good gravel road from the plant to a spot they must have thought was fine for a bridge. It was about a hundred yards upstream of our camp on the other side.

When we walked the road to where it met the creek we could see that the road continued on the other side and led back nearly to the rear of where our camp was. Fine, they'd provided a road and we had to provide the bridge. Randy and I spent the time until supper was about to get underway cussing and discussing ways to get started.

It just so happened that we'd crossed back over and were examining the other side when the fish started frying again for supper. Funny how things can work out in your favor with only a little planning.

Randy and I agreed to say Fuck It for the day and headed toward the meal.