Countdown to Armageddon (10 page)

     “Nope. I didn’t say that. I said I’d be finished with this one in three or four days. Then I’m taking a few days off before I start something else. I’ve earned it from getting saddle sores from that damn tractor.”

     Scott couldn’t argue. She’d been working awfully hard, after all.

     “Tell you what. How about next weekend we drive on up to Fredericksburg for some good German food? To celebrate the completion of the field project and the new blisters on the boys’ hands?”

     Jordan and Zach looked at each other.

     “Dad, we don’t have any blisters on our hands.”

     Scott chuckled.

     “Not yet, son. Not yet.”

    
Jordan didn’t like the sound of that. But he was going to be paid almost three times what his friends were getting at the burger joint. And he wasn’t afraid of hard work. Never had been. So he was okay with a few blisters.

     Zachary was a trooper. He was okay too.

     “Come on, boys. Let’s get you started.”

     He took them to the tool barn and gave them each a pair of gloves and a tool apron. Each apron had two large pockets in front, and a loop on each side to hold tools.

     He took a large box of sheet metal screws and poured a good amount into three of the four pockets. In the fourth, he put a half dozen quarter inch drill bits.

     “These are hardened steel tipped bits,” he said. They’re made for cutting through steel. But even with these kind of bits, you’ll go through a lot of them. You’ll be drilling hundreds of holes, and you’ll just flat wear them out. Hell, you’ll probably burn up three or four drills too, before we’re finished.”

     He took two cordless drills and three spare batteries and said, “Jordan, grab that ladder and follow me.”

      Scott led the boys to the corner of the house where he’d started the project weeks before. He took the first panel of corrugated metal roofing from one of the stacks and held it up against the three crosspieces.

     “Okay, guys. The concept is a simple one. But even though it doesn’t require a lot of thinking, it requires that you both pay attention. It’s easy to get hurt if you’re not careful. The edges of these things are sharp and can slice your arm or face right open if you’re not careful. Always wear your gloves when you’re handing it, and always watch what you’re doing.

     “Zachary, take those ear buds out of your ears. You can listen to your music when you’re not working. While you’re here working with your brother, the two of you need to be able to communicate. You can’t do that with ear buds in your ears.

     “Okay, I’m going to position the first piece, and then I want you to hold it into place while I drill the holes and place the screws.

     After placing the panel perpendicular to the house and flush up against it, the boys held it firmly in place. Scott used one drill to drill three holes through the center of the panel and into the center crosspiece behind it. Then he placed the drill on the ground and picked up the second drill. The second drill had a bit driver in it that fit the sheet metal screws in the boys’ aprons. He pulled three screws from
Jordan’s apron pocket and used the drill to drive the screws into the holes he’d just drilled.

     “Okay, you can let go now.”

     The boys let go of the piece of metal and took a couple of steps back.

     “The first three screws will hold it into place while you do the rest of the drilling. Once you’re at this point, you drill three similar holes in the bottom, through the roofing and into the crosspiece behind it. You do three holes on the top crosspiece too. Then you use the other drill to install the screws. Any questions?”

     Zachary said, “Nope. Piece of cake.”

    
Jordan said, “When do we get to take a coffee break?”

     Scott said, “You’re fired. Zach, you’re the boss now.”

     “All right! Hey, wait a minute. You’re kidding, right?”

     Scott laughed.

     “Yeah, but just barely.”

     He went on with his instruction.

     “These things are corrugated and I chose this design for a reason. Once the first piece is placed, the rest will be easy. You don’t have to worry about the pieces going up crooked or off center. All you do is overlap the first channel of the new piece into the last channel of the piece you just put up. They’ll fit together perfectly. As long as you do that, the fence will be perfectly square. And it’ll be strong, too. In addition to the nine screws holding each panel into place, the panel on each side of it will also hold it up. This fence will outlive you, boys, mark my words. But we have to do it right. No skipped screws. No holes drilled through the panel that miss the crosspiece behind it. Understood?”

     Both boys shook their heads yes.

     “One last thing. Have either of you ever used a cordless drill before?”

    
Jordan looked at his brother and then answered for both of them.

     “No sir.”

     “Okay, the first thing you’ll notice is that they’re heavy. Very heavy. You don’t have to hassle with a cord, but the tradeoff is that the batteries are heavier than the drill. After a few hours at this your arms will feel like they’re going to fall off. There are two of you, so you can trade off the drilling and the panel holding. You can take breaks to let your arms rest when you need to. I won’t say anything unless I notice you’re breaking more than you’re working. Understand?”

     “Yes sir.”

     “Now, then, if the cordless drills kick your ass and you just can’t lift your arms to do the work anymore, then just go back to the tool barn. There are a couple of corded drills and some long extension cords in there, and you can switch out the cordless drills if you want to. The cords are a pain in the butt, but the drills only weigh half as much. So I’ll leave that choice up to you. Any questions?”

     “No sir.”

     Scott left them and went to the opposite side of the compound, where he’d left off welding the crosspieces. He knew they’d do a good job. They were his boys, after all. He’d taught them years before that anything worth doing was worth doing right.

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     A few weeks later things were progressing well. Joyce took a week off from the compound, caught up on things at work and in her personal life, and came back refreshed and ready to go.

     Scott finished welding the crosspieces and was spending his days building a two-hundred yard long wooden privacy fence that effectively split the compound right down the middle. Joyce worked with him on it, and they found that they worked as well together on a single project as when they were each doing their own thing.

     The greenhouse was completed, and the citrus trees were planted inside them. The Butler buildings were also in, but needed to be filled with feed and hay.

     Scott asked Joyce, as she was hammering a fence picket up with galvanized nails, “Hey, do you mind if I leave you alone on this project for three or four days?”

     “No, cowboy. Why? What are you going to be doing?”

     “I want to lease a flatbed trailer, and start buying feed and hay for the barns. Then I want to start buying the livestock.”

     “Are we far enough along for the livestock?”

     “Yes, I think so. Most of the barbed wire is up, and if they manage to find a hole and slip out, they won’t go far because of all the mesquite trees we’ve laid down along the perimeter. I’m afraid to wait too long. If the blackout were to hit today and we had no livestock, we’d be forced to become vegetarians for the rest of our lives.”

     Joyce laughed.

     “Yuck! Not me, cowboy. Salads are okay, but only if you eat real food along with them.”

     “Yeah. My thinking exactly.”

     He swatted her on the bottom. She said, “You keep that up and we’re going to be finished fencing for the day. You’ll be nailing me instead.”

     Now it was his turn to laugh.

     “Now, as tempted as I am, we don’t need to be burning our daylight doing any of that kind of stuff. That’s what night time is for.”

     “Party pooper.”

     She stuck out her lower lip and pretended to pout.

     “No, if you need to stack feed in the barns and get some stock in here, go right ahead. I can finish up these pickets without you. I’ll need help hanging the gate, because it’s a two person job. But I’ll grab the boys to help me if you’re not around.”

     “Great. I’ll start hauling feed tomorrow, then.”

     “And, hey, speaking of those boys, I’ve been impressed at how hard they’re working. Do you tell them often what great boys they are? And how much you love them?”

     “Yeah, sometimes. But they know.”

     “It doesn’t matter if they know or not, bonehead. When you love somebody, you need to tell them sometimes. Words like that are food for the soul. They need to hear it, whether they know it or not.”

     If she was fishing, Scott didn’t take the bait. Sometimes it was hard to read her. He’d suspected that she was falling for him. Or maybe already had. As for returning the feelings, he wasn’t quite sure what he felt. Not yet.

     Scott had been hurt several times before when it came to love. It wasn’t just the whole thing with Linda. There had been a couple of women that came after Linda who broke his heart as well. And had come close to breaking his spirit.

     The result was that he was no longer a man who fell in love easily.

     He did know, though, that he enjoyed being with this woman. They clicked in every way possible. Was that the same as love? He wasn’t sure. But he damn well wasn’t going to walk into love and get hurt again. Not when there was no hurry to do so.

     He looked into her eyes. He wondered if she needed the confirmation. Maybe it wasn’t the boys who needed to hear those three little words. Maybe it was her.

     But if she was hoping to hear him say he loved her, she seemed to take it well when he didn’t. She smiled and went back to her work, and didn’t seem hurt or upset in any way.

     Maybe he would tell her he loved her someday soon. But first he had to fight an internal battle, a debate within his own mind, that it was love he really felt. And whether or not it was smart to risk another broken heart by falling in love again.

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     “Howdy, partner.”

     A burley mountain of a man in a blue plaid shirt and coveralls met Scott halfway across the feed store floor.

     He reached out a ham-sized fist and Scott took it. It was a firm handshake.

     Scott’s father had always told him you can tell a lot from a handshake. Men who shook hands with a firm grip were confident. That confidence usually came from the knowledge that they were honest and successful. They were good men to do business with.

     Men with weak handshakes, on the other hand, were usually the nervous sort. Scott’s father maintained that they were nervous because they had things to hide. They couldn’t be trusted.

     And after all his years in business, Scott had seen for himself that in nearly all cases, his father was right.

     This man, who looked like he stepped right out of an old western movie, was an honest man. Scott was sure of it.

     “I’m Tom Haskins. What can I do for you today, sir?”

     “Scott Harter. I just bought a few acres of land, and I thought I’d fulfill a boyhood dream of mine and start my own cattle ranch. Not a big one. Just a few head. Trouble is, I don’t know beans about cows or ranching. I’ll learn as I go, but I was hoping you could help me figure out what kind of feed to buy.”

     “You’re gonna be a cowboy, huh? Good for you, partner. The cowboy is a dying breed. Nobody wants to work with livestock anymore. We can use a few more good cowboys in the business.

     “Come on back here and I’ll give you crash course on cattle feed.

     “This here’s what we call compound feed. This is made by Purina, one of the best brands, but there are several other good brands also. It comes in pellet form, it’s easy to scoop and measure, and economical. Cows are like teenage boys. They’ll eat whatever you put in front of them. You can give them two pounds a day of this stuff, and they’ll be fine. Or, you can give them ten pounds a day and they’ll get fat. This is good sustenance food, for winter and droughts and such.