Miracles

by Thomas A. Watson

  Skannish gave Sutton a nod and he turned to Sarah. “I’ve never been religious, but I want to thank God we are with them,” Sutton told her.

  Getting up, Skannish whispered, “I want them to teach me how to hotwire a car.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gollum meets Arthur

  It was the middle of summer and Shawn was standing on the top of the levee looking out over the expanse that would be the lake. He was still having problems believing they had moved a hill that used to occupy most of the area that would be the lake. Because they had moved so fast, Arthur had relented and expanded the lake and when it was filled, it would be just over fifty acres instead of twenty-five.

  The first thing Joseph had done was dig the diversion ditches for the stream from the west and the stream from the north. That alone amazed Shawn. The diversion ditches really couldn’t be called ‘ditches’ because they were five feet wide and three feet deep. Unlike the streams, the water just moved slowly along the diversion ditches. When he’d asked Joseph about it, Joseph had pulled him to the side and explained the ditches only dropped one foot from where they diverted water until they reached the main stream bed further down where they used to join together.

  A smile broke out on Shawn’s face remembering the lone house on the hill they’d had to remove. Arthur said they’d only known them by name and never visited them. To Shawn, that meant the people were assholes because Arthur and Wendy were the coolest people on the planet. Being Arthur, he’d gathered a group up and emptied the house, sheds, and small barn. What was taken out was stacked neatly in the shops, containers around the house or valley, and in the five other small farms inside the perimeter fence while Arthur stood outside telling his group how they were going to tear apart the house to save as much of the material as they could. Knowing what Arthur was doing because he wanted to ‘salvage’ what he could, Wendy walked over, cranked up a bulldozer, and knocked down the house and all the buildings.

  Shawn was never so thankful for Wendy, even though Arthur ranted for several hours. What would’ve taken them nearly a week to do, tear down the house and buildings, Wendy had done in fifteen minutes.

  Hearing the whine of diesel engines, Shawn looked to his left at the south end of the levee. The drainage ditch for the west stream had been blocked off yesterday and a small group was closing the last hundred yards of the levee off where it ran into a slope. Even with Arthur’s projections, the edge of the lake would be over three hundred yards from the end of the dam. Arthur didn’t care, he wanted the gap closed, just in case.

  Turning back out over the lake, Shawn just shook his head. Rocks covered the lakebed and what would be the water side of the levee. One thing he had learned, the ground in Arkansas was more rock than dirt. A week into the project, Shawn was starting to worry if they would have enough dirt to make the levee because Arthur had wanted dirt only.

  Thinking of the dirt, Shawn turned right to look north and appreciated the eight-hundred-yard-long levee. It was thirty feet tall and over four hundred feet wide at the base. The only area that wasn’t wide was the area that held the spillway where the stream bed ran. This was the only area encased in concrete. The spillway was a hundred feet long sloping ramps that curled up like a ski jump. The old stream bed where the two streams joined was ten feet wide and sliced eight feet deep into the ground. So Arthur’s spillway was twenty feet wide and twenty feet over the original stream bed. This way, the stream had a ten-foot safety measure before it crested the dam. But Arthur was certain the twenty-foot-wide spillway wouldn’t let that happen.

  Seeing a dump truck driving slowly north, Shawn laughed. “Pat really needs to learn to hit the gas.”

  Looking further north, he could see the mounds of rocks left over. He couldn’t see it, but knew Pat was heading for the trammel. Shawn didn’t know what a trammel was, he just called it ‘sifting dirt’. He’d never dreamed there were trammels the size of semi-trailers. A front end loader dumped in a bucket and the machine spit out dirt on one conveyer belt and rocks on another. One thing everyone found out, the dump truck sitting under the rock belt could be filled three times before the dirt truck was full.

  It only took ten days for them to finish the outer fence surrounding them. Because Arthur refused to cut down oaks or pecan trees, the fence was just over twelve miles long enclosing over five thousand acres. By the end, they were putting up two and a half miles of fence in a day.

  Before Arthur joined the levee building, he went to visit the new people and he kept his word. The next day, he brought back the fence building crew. But they didn’t start building the new group’s fence the first day. Instead, they arranged what the group had brought in. It was laid everywhere in the valley. One thing Shawn had learned, Arthur couldn’t do shit unless the area was organized.

  Seeing what they were doing, the new group started arranging the supplies and it was then Shawn realized there were more people there than had been at the store. There were two dozen adults and over sixty kids.

  After arranging the supplies, the next day Arthur had moved out with Shawn, Kirk, and Todd to mark the fence line. Unlike his fence, Arthur plowed down oaks and even a few pecan trees, making the hundred-yard-wide path the fence would set on. On the third day, Arthur led his group out and started the fence. Since this fence only enclosed two thousand acres, they were done in three days and headed back home to join in on the levee construction.

  Arthur had his group start on the actual levee while Joseph’s group continued digging out the lakebed. They had so many rocks that Arthur pulled some from his group and had them start driving out onto the lakebed in dump trucks, spreading the rocks along the bed. There really wasn’t much of a choice because they had to make room for the rocks Joseph and his crew were still digging out.

  Shawn was still trying to figure out what the hell they were going to do with the huge mounds of rocks that covered over twenty acres just inside the fence to the north.

  Then, there were the piles of trees because Arthur had made sure each one that could be used as lumber was cut and stacked. Nobody was going to tell Arthur that Wendy had bulldozed down several after she’d gotten tired of waiting on Arthur to come and cut them down. Not even Joseph went against his dad, but Wendy didn’t give a shit.

  “What the hell are you thinking about so hard, son?” Arthur asked, walking up the stairs that ran along the outside of the spillway.

  Liking that Arthur called him ‘son’, Shawn grinned. The first time Arthur had done it was a week ago when Shawn had turned fifteen. “Can’t believe there was a hill there five weeks ago, and now there’s a twenty-foot-deep hole covered in a layer of rocks.” Like others who’d had birthdays, there’d been a cake that evening at supper. Always, Arthur and Wendy gave the kids a few presents. Shawn had gotten pants just like Arthur’s from Wendy and a new holster from Arthur.

  “Yeah, I thought old Skannish was going to faint seeing eight-year-olds driving dump trucks and heavy machinery,” Arthur laughed. He had made each kid a booster seat and a set of blocks that strapped on the pedals so they could drive.

  Staring out three hundred yards from the levee, Shawn saw the intakes for the powerhouse. There were five twelve-inch pipes and one twenty-inch pipe. The biggest was an emergency spillway, and only ran to a concrete bunker on the other side of the dam where the pipes were connected to massive valves. From there, the big pipe ran to the stream. Arthur wanted another way to drain water, just in case.

  From the valve house, the other five pipes ran six hundred yards further down the valley into another, but much bigger, cinder block house that would become the power station. From there, it was the hundred feet drop Arthur had wanted. Over each pipe sticking out of the ground was an eight feet tall and ten feet around wire basket to keep trash from being sucked into the pipe.

  “I thought the lake would fill up faster,” Shawn commented.

  Laughing, Arthur clasped his shoulder. “Shawn, they only blocked off that one stream this m
orning, so both have only been filling the lake for six hours. But, I’m not expecting the lake to get filled until November, maybe December,” Arthur admitted. “We’re talking several billion gallons of water in this lake.”

  “But we need power now,” Shawn moaned.

  “And we have it,” Arthur said. “We’ll continue using the generators, but the lake doesn’t have to be full to generate power. I think by the end of September, we’ll have enough water to start making some power.”

  Hearing in Arthur’s voice that he wasn’t worried, Shawn relaxed. Glancing around to make sure nobody was close, “How are the new kids doing?” Shawn asked in a low voice.

  Grinning, “You mean Chloe?” Arthur asked, and Shawn gave a slow nod. Over the last month, Arthur had brought back another eight kids. One boy that was fifteen, a six-year-old girl, two seven-year-old girls, two eight-year-old boys, an eleven-year-old girl and then the oldest, a sixteen-year-old girl, Chloe.

  Giving a moaning groan, “Pops,” Shawn whined. “She’s been here over a week and hasn’t taken a shower.” Shawn had known girls like Chloe before the flu; Goth chicks who wanted to rebel against the norm. Most, he had to admit, he liked. Chloe was just a bitch, a bitch that stunk to high hell and complained about every chore. The chores she’d been given, and the fact that others had gone behind her and done the chores correctly so Chloe wouldn’t get in trouble, and to Shawn’s knowledge, Chloe had never thanked anyone.

  Giving a sigh, “I’m handling that at supper,” Arthur said.

  Feeling bad he’d even mentioned it, Shawn turned around and saw a dump truck creeping back loaded with dirt. “Pops, we have got to get Pat to drive faster,” Shawn sighed, then realized he had just given Arthur another problem.

  “Not right now,” Arthur laughed. “As slow as he drives, Joseph has the last load spread out and packed down before he returns. That’s why only Pat is driving a dump truck for Joseph’s crew.”

  “Oh,” Shawn said, relieved that wasn’t a problem.

  “The last gate section is loaded, you ready?”

  Looking back over the field that sat in front of Nicole’s old house, Shawn saw a semi-trailer loaded with the concrete track. The track was a four feet wide, four feet tall, and ten feet long box, and the walls were six inches thick. There were two train tracks mounted on the bottom, and at the top was a protruding lip six inches tall like a stem with a gap that was barely an inch wide.

  It was in this field that they poured concrete molds.

  “Yeah, and then we can put the fence across the river at the end of the valley,” Shawn sighed. Where the river left the valley was the only open area. Where streams entered had been closed. No stream that entered was wider than ten feet, so they’d just put a pole on each side of the stream and boarded it up four feet above the stream. The gap under the fence was covered with bars and chain-link fence buried in the stream bed so water could flow in, but nothing else.

  Leading Shawn down the steps of the spillway, Arthur looked at the outside slope of the levee covered in green grass. He had taken a group to a grass farm and used the machine to plow up plats, and then they’d covered the slope, the eight-foot-wide roadway at the crest, and the ten feet of the lake side to where the rocks on the dam ended. None of the kids had ever seen the grass harvester and had thought it was very neat. Even he had to admit, it was pretty cool.

  “Pops,” Vicki called over the radio.

  “Yeah, Little Momma.”

  “Momma said she’s almost here with the cement trucks,” Vicki told him.

  “We’re heading to the south gate now,” Arthur told her, and climbed up in the semi-truck. “You don’t want to drive?”

  Climbing in the passenger seat and closing his door, “Pops, I’ve had enough of driving big rigs for a few days,” Shawn answered. He was one of the few Arthur let drive the massive dump trucks.

  Driving toward the house they drove over the moat, and Shawn knew the metal moat bridge didn’t even feel the weight of the truck. Easing past the house, they crossed the rear moat bridge and then headed up the road toward the textile barn.

  Passing the barn, Shawn looked at the slaughterhouse which was just a refrigerated container. They had killed five cows and five pigs some weeks ago. After letting them hang for a week, Shawn and Kirk had helped Arthur at the end of the workday to cut them up and package them. Then Arthur showed them how to tan the leather. At the time, Shawn had fought not to cry when they’d killed the cows. But two days later a cow nearly kicked him, and Shawn didn’t feel bad anymore. The pigs made Kirk sniffle but like Shawn, he didn’t cry.

  “Why didn’t you let Kirk come with us to pick up the track?” Shawn asked. He and Kirk were rather proud to be called Arthur’s mini me’s, and they usually were with Arthur during the day.

  “Want at least three on guns at the site,” Arthur answered.

  Looking down at his AR across his lap, Shawn didn’t even pat the XD pistol on his hip. “If you think there might be trouble, maybe we should’ve stayed and let Todd bring someone back to get the track,” Shawn offered.

  “Todd can’t operate the crane worth a shit,” Arthur scoffed. “I always expect trouble, but we haven’t been gone that long.”

  Grinning, “That’s why you left Donald and Daisy with Kirk,” Shawn chuckled.

  “Good man,” Arthur laughed as trees closed in on each side of the road. A mile from the house they pulled out of the trees to a flat, cleared area with the fifteen feet tall fence on each side of the road. A ten-foot concrete wall ran from each wooden fence to the road, leaving a twenty-five foot opening. On the right or west side was the gate.

  That was the one thing built at the site. It was forty feet long, fifteen feet tall from the ground, but there was another four feet of gate in the track that was buried under the ground. The gate was made from one-inch-thick four-by-eight feet sheets of steel. The track they were carrying extended past the road, sealing the entry point off. Looking at the gate sitting in the concrete track, that was basically just a box with a gap barely wider than the gate, it amazed Shawn that Arthur had even thought of it, much less built it. Insects could come in here and Arthur said smaller mice could, but Shawn was having trouble believing that. There was less than a quarter-inch gap between the gate and the concrete track it was set in, and he just couldn’t see something squeezing into that.

  Parking the truck, “Guide the track in for me,” Arthur told him as he climbed out. Shawn couldn’t help but laugh because Andrea was standing near the trench where the track was going to guide it in. Andrea wanted perfection and that’s what made her one of the best welders.

  Jumping out, Shawn decided to play it diplomatically. “Pops wants you on the track steer to cover it up,” he called out to Andrea, and she took off running.

  Hearing an engine crank up, Shawn turned to see Arthur sitting in the cab of the crane rotating the end over the trailer and saw Todd waiting. After Todd hooked up the track to the crane he jumped off and grabbed one of the end ropes, and Becky had the other. As Arthur lifted the track, Shawn saw the crane shift as it bore the weight.

  Moving over to the trench, Shawn guided the track in until it sat on the ground. Grabbing an impact gun, Shawn pushed his rifle to his back and grabbed one-inch bolts. The track already laid had four-inch-wide two-inch-thick metal bars that jutted out five feet to join it to the next track. Feeding in the first bolt, Shawn gave hand signals to Arthur to move the track until the bolt slid in. Climbing in, Shawn gave a sigh when the first bolt slid in. Using the impact gun he tightened the bolts, then put the other two in on this side and then did the other.

  He turned to see Jim already crawling inside the box tunnel that formed the track, making sure the train tracks met up evenly with the others. When Jim climbed out holding up a thumb, Todd came over and unhooked the crane and Shawn scrambled out seeing Andrea already coming with the first bucket of dirt.

  He moved over to the road and looked at the gap where the gate slid ac
ross the road before he moved over to the actual gate. Seeing only a tiny gap between the gate and the concrete lip always made him smile. “I want to build like this one day,” he mumbled as Arthur turned the crane off.

  Moving over to Kirk who was standing at the corner of the fence ready to duck back just like Arthur had told him, “You see anything while we were gone?” he asked Kirk.

  With his fedora tilted low to shade his eyes, “Deer and a cow,” Kirk answered, holding his AR across his chest while he scanned outside the fence. Beside Kirk sat Donald and Daisy, panting in the heat but they were also looking out the gate. This was to be the widest gate and the main one they would use. The road leading to the gate was an old logging road that eventually ran into a dirt road before reaching a blacktop. There was another south gate past where they’d hidden the road. Arthur told them the only reason it was there was so they could clear out trash that collected where the stream ran under the fence. There was another gate to the north beside the north stream for the same reason. The other wide gate like this one sat above the hill overlooking the valley to the north and that’s why it was called the north gate.

  Now, only a wooden wall attached to tractors blocked the other entrances, but that would change soon enough.

  “Need a break?” Shawn offered.

  Taking his fedora off and wiping his brow, “Not really,” Kirk answered and Shawn grinned, taking his own hat off. They were both dressed as close as they could get to being identical to Arthur. Like Shawn, Kirk had recently had a birthday and got pants like Arthur’s from Wendy as well.

  Shawn looked to the right at the one-hundred-yard gap from the outside of the fence to the trees. Lined up in the middle of the cleared track, sprinklers were shooting out water and the once bare ground was now covered in grass and clover. It wasn’t thick but as fast as it was growing, Shawn knew that it wouldn’t be long until it was.

  “Trucks will be here soon and I don’t know who’s leading so give them room,” Arthur said, walking up behind them.