Forgotten Forbidden America:: Patriots Reborn (5 page)

Realizing Nellie was waiting on him to move his ass, Nelson grabbed his rifle and climbed out. “Does she know how to drive the dump truck?”

“If she doesn’t, she’ll learn,” Nellie said, closing the cab door as Nelson jumped off.

Slinging his rifle, Nelson grinned. “Tough love.” He walked over, putting his AR on the UTV and went to help unload Matt’s truck. 

When Ashley drove off, Matt turned to look at the small pool that formed before the creek emptied into the river seventy feet below. “Is it really necessary to dig out a holding area?” he asked, looking at the pool of water.

“Yep,” Nelson said, hauling a roll of pipe over. “Matt, that pool is only like five feet deep. We need to hold more water for several reasons besides power.”

Just groaning, Matt helped drag the rolls of pipe over to where Nelson wanted them. As they pulled another roll over, Michelle came up with her AR across her chest. “I’m moving to the top of that ridge to keep a look out. Gerald is sending Duke with me since our dogs stayed at the house,” she said, leaning down and patting Duke. She looked to the west at the steep ridge overlooking the area.

“Okay, baby, remember, if someone comes, they are coming here first because Bernard’s big ass excavator is really loud,” Nelson said, kissing her cheek.

“You and Gavin be careful,” she said, kissing his cheek and hugging Gavin. “Don’t let Daddy get hurt being stupid,” she said, rubbing Gavin’s hair.

“I won’t, Mom.” Gavin grinned as Michelle took off with Duke following her up the steep rise.

“Okay, farmer boy, what do you want to do?” Gerald asked, walking over.

“I’m going to tie the hose to the back of the UTV, and Gavin is going to drive it behind me as I lead him along the creek bottom. You and Matt will hook up the hose as Gavin pulls it out,” Nelson said, moving over to cut the ties off the rolls of two-inch hose.

Gavin jumped in the UTV as Nelson tied the ends of two rolls to the back of the UTV. Slinging his AR across his chest, Nelson took a deep breath and started walking up the creek. The rolls unwound as Gavin slowly followed, and Gerald pulled out a drill with a screwdriver bit as Matt grabbed bags of male to male fittings and hose clamps.

“Hope this works with all the trouble we are going through,” Matt said as Gerald called over the radio for Gavin to stop when the two-hundred-foot rolls reached the end.

“It worked small scale, so it damn well better work large scale,” Gerald said, cutting more rolls open and connecting them to the hoses Gavin was pulling.

Gavin had to drive the UTV in and out of the rocky creek bottom and along some very steep slopes beside the creek. At one point, he had to hold on to keep from sliding out the UTV when it tilted so far over.

When Nelson reached a metal post driven beside the creek, he motioned for Gavin to pull up and stop. Nelson looked down to see he was soaked and covered in mud with scratches covering his legs. “This is where we stop,” he said as Gavin pulled up beside a small pool that was fed by a small, two-foot waterfall.

Behind him, Gavin could still hear the excavator, but it sounded far off. “How far are we from the others?” he asked as his dad untied the hoses and took them off the UTV then tied them to the metal post.

“Just over four hundred yards away,” Nelson said, walking back over and pulling out a bottle of water.

“Why here?”

Nelson drained the bottle. “There is a sixty-foot drop from here to where the powerhouse is going to be. That will give us the pressure we need to make electricity,” Nelson said, tossing the bottle back in the UTV.

Not understanding but knowing his dad was beyond cool, Gavin just nodded. “So are we going back to help?”

“Yep, it’s time to get dirty,” Nelson said, climbing in beside Gavin. “Don’t run over the pipe we just laid; I don’t want to have to repair it.”

When they got back, they found only Bernard’s truck and trailer at the site. The trailer now had eight, two-foot-wide, twenty-foot-long, corrugated metal culverts on it. All the concrete barriers were stacked beside a pile of gravel. “Guess Ashley figured out how to drive the dump truck,” Nelson said as he got out.

Gavin ran over to the diversionary ditch Bernard had dug for the creek as Nelson walked over to Gerald and Matt, who were using a large gasoline pump to empty the pool of water. Seeing Bernard working on the powerhouse hole, Nelson walked over to see Bernard was almost done. The hole sat in the ridge with the river seventy feet down. Bernard was now digging the trench for the water lines they had laid out that would run to the powerhouse.

Walking back to Matt and Gerald, he saw Gavin chasing fish in the fast-draining pool of water. “That’s a good way to catch fish,” Nelson said, walking over in the pool.

“I’m sure there are a dozen laws against it,” Gerald said, laughing as Gavin lifted a trout.

Hearing the dump truck, Nelson looked up to see Ashley backing up to the pile of gravel. Seeing the front grill, Nelson laughed at the small tree stuck in the front bumper. “Glad the ground is dry; I would hate to have to get that big ass dump truck unstuck.”

“She drives it pretty good for someone who just learned,” Gerald said, watching Gavin carry another fish to the lip of the ravine that the creek ran down into the river below and throw the fish into the river. Laughing, Gavin took off to catch another fish and rescue it before the excavator dug out the pool.

“Can’t say I didn’t raise a conservationist,” Nelson chuckled, watching Gavin rescue another fish.

“Hey! The pool is empty enough! Get out of the way so I can get to work!” Bernard shouted at them, leaning out of his cab.

They quickly grabbed the pump and ran out of the almost empty pool as Bernard pulled the excavator down. Watching Bernard work, Nelson was shocked to see how much of the bottom was rock as Bernard dug out the pool and widened it.

Nelson keyed his radio. “Nellie, are you about done with the backhoe?”

“No, I’m sure we need more than three truck loads.”

Gerald scoffed, “The damn dump bed is fifteen feet long. I hope we don’t need much more than that.”

“How many did Bernard say we needed?” Nelson asked Nellie as Ashley pulled into the site and backed up to the pile of rock she had dumped out and stopped.

“He said five, so I’m sending seven. Why, do you need the backhoe?”

Nodding at Nellie’s reasoning, he said, “Yeah, I want to start putting in the small dams up stream.”

“Well, I can go to the farm and bring back the tractor with the front-end loader now that I have the area dug out,” she said. “Stop Ashley so we don’t meet on this little dirt trail my husband calls a road.” Matt took off as Ashley raised the bed of the dump truck, emptying the back.

“Seems Nellie isn’t fond of Bernard’s road-making ability,” Gerald chuckled as Bernard came over the radio.

“Listen, woman, I told you I couldn’t put in a real road because the Forestry Service wouldn’t allow it.”

“Some of this is our land! Those sons of bitches can kiss my ass!” Nellie snapped at him. “The first one that comes out here and says something, I’m planting ‘im under the corn!”

Nelson looked over at Gerald and grinned. “Guess we know where Nellie stands on confrontations with government employees.”

“Not before I send their ass through the wood chipper and use what’s left for chicken feed!” Bernard yelled.

Raising his eyebrows, Gerald said, “Bernard’s method of dealing with them scares me more than Nellie’s.” Nelson nodded in agreement.

When Nellie drove back, Nelson got on the backhoe as Ashley took Nellie back to the farm in the dump truck to get the tractor with the front-end loader. Grabbing some chain, Nelson, Gerald, and Matt hooked one of the smaller barriers using rebar that had been left exposed at the top, forming a loop.

After connecting it to the front-end loader, Nelson slowly lifted the heavy barrier. He knew the loader could pick up over seven thousand pounds, but he was guessing the weight of the barrier was close to six thousand. Feeling the massive machine shift in weight, Nelson figured he wasn’t far off.

He drove back down the dirt tract because taking the backhoe along the creek wasn’t an option. Slowing down on the tract where he saw a metal post driven into the ground, Nelson made sure he was in four-wheel drive and eased off the road, climbing a hill. He, Gerald, and Bernard had been all over this area, and this was the easiest way to get to the site for the water holding area that would feed the powerhouse.

Topping the hill and feeling the barrier starting to swing, Nelson lowered the bucket until the barrier hit the ground. Raising the bucket, Nelson slowly followed faded orange ribbons tied on trees as he weaved around them and ran over smaller trees.

Driving down a small draw that led to the creek, Nelson felt the barrier swing out, shifting the weight of the backhoe. The backhoe jerked forward, and Nelson stomped the brakes and felt the wheels lock up, but the backhoe continued sliding down the draw.

Grabbing the controls for the loader, he dropped them, sending the barrier to the ground, and the backhoe stopped its slide. “Not funny,” he mumbled, trying to get his heart rate back under control.

When he reached the flat area beside the small pool, he lowered the barrier to the ground and climbed out, unhooking it. The “flat” area was barely big enough for the backhoe sitting parallel to the creek. Driving back up the draw, Nelson was convinced four-wheel drive, was one of man’s greatest inventions.

His second trip wasn’t as scary, and when Nelson had the second barrier on the ground, he turned the backhoe around and planted the feet or horizontal stabilizers and front-end loader. Climbing out, he found Matt, Gerald, and Gavin standing beside the metal post with the hoses tied to it. Looking down in the pool, Nelson could see the bottom. The surface of the water was three feet below the lip of the pool.

Jumping down into the pool, Nelson moved to the end where the water was funneled between two massive boulders, forming the waterfall. Seeing nothing had changed from their original plans, Nelson climbed out and back into the backhoe. He swung the arm out over the pool just behind the boulder on the far bank and dug out a trench. Since he didn’t know just how big the boulders were, he was careful not to hit them. He was using them with the barriers to make his dam.

When he was done digging the trench, Nelson climbed out of the backhoe and called the others to bring over the stuff he needed. On each barrier was a one-foot by one-foot hole two feet from the bottom. On both sides of the barriers, bolts stuck out around the holes. Nelson grabbed a large funnel made out of thick metal that ended in a two-inch pipe. With Matt holding the heavy funnel, Nelson bolted it on.

On the other side, Nelson grabbed a metal bulge of screens and bolted it on, covering the hole that fed into the funnel. Looking in the screens, the others saw five different screens, each smaller than the one before it. When they were done bolting the funnel and screen on the other barrier, Nelson stood and said, “Gerald, you lift them over to us!”

As Matt and Nelson hooked one of the barriers up to the arm, Gerald climbed in the backhoe. Making sure Gavin was out of the way, Nelson jumped back in the pool and motioned for Gavin to jump in but stay well behind them.

Gerald lifted the first barrier up as they used ropes, brute force, and words Gavin shouldn’t hear, they guided it in the trench Nelson had dug. Since the water only had half the area to leave the pool, it would pull them, trying to trap them between the barrier and the boulders.

The second barrier was a lot harder since all the barriers had two-inch tongue and grooves on the sides to fit together tight. When Gerald set the barrier down, the rush of water down the stream stopped as water blasted out the funnels Nelson had made to feed the pipes.

Nelson crawled over the dam with the others. The middle of the barrier dam had a notch on the top for the spillway, three feet wide and two feet deep, just a little bigger than the natural funnel the boulders made. What they could see was the boulders only extended a few feet into the bank, where the barrier formed a twelve-foot-long wall.

Just a foot off the bottom of the old stream bed, the funnels were shooting streams of water several yards out. “Putting the pipes on that is going to be fun,” Matt said, watching the two water jets.

Nelson reached over and patted Matt’s shoulder. “That’s why I’m bringing your big ass to help me.” They watched the water in the pool rise then slowly start to pour over the spillway until the waterfall covered the two jets of water below from the funnels.

“Nelson, bring your little friends back; lunch is here,” Michelle called over the radio. “You can play in the water after you eat.”

Gerald looked over at Nelson. “There are times I’m glad I’m not married.”

Nelson shrugged as he climbed out of the creek. “Don’t know why; the women here give you hell anyway, and you don’t get any of the fringe benefits,” he said then pulled Gavin out.

“Never thought about it like that,” Gerald mumbled as he and Matt walked over to the UTV. Gavin climbed in the backhoe with his dad. After Nelson drove them out of the draw, he let Gavin drive them back to the work site.

When Gavin pulled into the site, Nelson saw Olivia and Brittney running around and passing out sandwiches with Nancy passing out red cups filled with tea. He looked over to see Gerald holding Devin. “Damn, I have to move fast,” he mumbled as Gavin turned off the backhoe.