Say no more.
There was an almost constant breeze blowing through Etlunka Lake, though it was hard to detect at ground level. At ground level it was mostly blocked by RVs and trees.
Atop the RVs, though, it provided something akin to air conditioning. And it did indeed prevent the hideous little monsters from landing on one’s skin.
And it very quickly became one of Hannah and Gwen’s favorite places to while away the afternoon.
On this particular day they’d only been atop the RV for a few minutes. Gwen hadn’t even taken a bite from her tuna sandwich yet when she noticed a white pickup approaching.
Several of their neighbors brought pickup trucks with them when they fled the lower forty eight.
But none of them were white.
The only white pickup truck at the lake, as far as they knew, belonged to FEMA and was driven by Sid Smith.
“Heads up, partner in crime,” Gwen said. “Don’t get comfortable. Sid’s coming.”
Everyone at the lake knew Sid, and everybody liked him.
Sid was a man who almost always brought good news. If not for them personally, then for someone they knew.
And everyone knew every time a delivery was made to one of their neighbors that they themselves were a step closer to getting their own package.
Sid came around occasionally to work with the residents regarding issues they were having or special requests they made.
But most of the time when Sid came around, it meant someone was getting their bundle. Somebody was king or queen for the day.
Somebody had finally hit the jackpot.
The thing was, they always knew ahead of time. That was necessary because they were expected to be there to sign some paperwork and count doorknobs and such.
And, since such a joyous secret was hard to keep, all the neighbors knew as well.
There was usually a crowd of people on site to greet Sid when his pickup came up the road.
Today there was absolutely no one.
Chapter 19
Sid pulled into Lot 4863 and got out of his truck.
From a distance Hannah and Gwen saw him take a can of fluorescent orange spray paint and paint that number: “4863,” upon the ground.
Hannah was conflicted.
Gwen, not so much.
Hannah said, “Should we wake up the baby and carry him over there, so we can find out what in heck is going on?”
“No. You stay here. I’ll go find out.”
“Not without me, you’re not.”
The two didn’t bicker often.
But there was no way Hannah was going to stay in the dark if she had the chance to go along.
“Give me five minutes to get him up and change him. If he’s sleepy enough he’ll sleep in his stroller. If he doesn’t I’ll just put him down early tonight.”
“One second over five minutes and I’m leaving without you.”
She looked at her watch to drive home her point.
Hannah left her tuna sandwich for the flies and scampered down the ladder.
Gwen? She was too fond of tuna to let hers go to waste.
She ate her sandwich and drank a Coca-Cola while she watched Sid, standing in the middle of lot 4863, seemingly all alone in the world.
She muttered under her breath, “This is extremely unusual, Sid. What on earth are you up to?”
She checked her watch, and at the four minute mark she climbed down the ladder and walked over to the RV’s door.
She yelled through the screen door, “Twenty seconds, slow poke! And don’t you dare ask for an extension! I’ll punch you in the nose if you do!”
In response the door opened.
Hannah appeared with baby Samson in a collapsible umbrella stroller, which she deftly maneuvered out the door and down the steps.
Samson was completely covered by mosquito netting, and didn’t seem fazed at all by being jostled about.
As they walked around the front of the RV on their way to Lot 4863 they heard the unmistakable sound of a CH-53 helicopter in the distance.
They watched the chopper’s progress as they closed ground on Sid, perhaps a quarter mile away. And sure enough, they were headed to the same destination.
“Sid has a lot of explaining to do,” Hannah grumbled.
She wasn’t a happy camper.
As they neared the site they saw Sid on the ground, martialing the chopper onto the drop point, then waving his goodbye once the loadmaster dislodged the quick release pin.
By the time they arrived the chopper was lifting off for its return flight to Anchorage and its next load.
They were almost within earshot of Sid when Hannah suddenly remembered something Gwen had said a few minutes earlier.
“Hey, would you really have punched me in the nose?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Just be glad you made the deadline so we’ll never have to find out.”
“You’re a meanie, you know that?”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
By now Sid could hear every word they were saying.
He could be forgiven if he thought there were two bratty children approaching.
“Hey, Sid,” Gwen said.
“Well hello there. How are the two prettiest ladies at Etlunka Lake today?”
“Don’t you try to butter us up, Bub. We’re not in the mood for any guff from you.”
“Yeah!” Hannah added.
Then she leaned over to her friend and asked, “What’s guff mean?”
“I don’t know. They said it in an old John Wayne movie Melvyn and I watched last night.”
“Yeah!” Hannah said to Sid. “Don’t you dare give us any of that guff… stuff, buster.”
Sid didn’t know what to make of the two women.
But he thought it prudent to back up a bit, and leave a few feet of space between them.
Just in case their fists started flying.
He was preparing to cut the steel tag on the bundle of building materials. It was something he usually did in the presence of the lot owners.
“Sid, what in the world is going on?”
“What do you mean, Hannah?”
“You’re breaking protocol, Sid. We’ve been present when you’ve done joint inventories with new homeowners at least a couple of dozen times.
“We know the process so well that if you got sick tomorrow we could fill in for you and do everything perfectly.”
She looked over to Gwen, who picked up where she left off.
“We know you always verify the serial number with the lot’s owner, Sid. Always, without exception. You tell them to read the numbers off the tag. You verify that they match the seven numbers on the inventory sheet.
“Only then do you cut the tag and start the count.”
“That’s right,” Hannah continued. “Where are the homeowners? How come this delivery wasn’t announced like all the others were, so a crowd of people could be here to cheer for the helicopter crew and congratulate their new neighbors?
“What’s different about this delivery, Sid? What’s up with the secrecy? What are you trying to hide here?”
Both women stood six feet in front of him, side by side, hands clenched into fists and placed upon their hips.
They were a foreboding force, the two of them were.
Sid had done absolutely nothing wrong; he was an honorable man, and there wasn’t a dishonest bone in his body.
But apparently he’d have to come clean, for these women obviously suspected him of some type of wrongdoing.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “It’s not a big deal. I just wanted to keep it low key. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, because I’m a low key kind of guy.
“The truth is, I am doing a joint inventory.
“With myself, I mean.
“This is my bundle. I am the homeowner.
“I’m your new neighbor.”
Chapter 20
Hannah screamed.
Bu
t it wasn’t a scream of terror or fear.
It was a scream not unlike the scream of a teenaged girl, when being told her favorite band was coming to town.
A scream of joy.
She ran to Sid and hugged him, which he didn’t mind, but which embarrassed him just a bit.
Then she punched him in the arm.
But it was a playful punch.
He didn’t mind the punch either, as it didn’t hurt him at all. But it did confuse him.
“What was that for?”
“For not telling us before. We’ve been wondering ever since we got here what was up with Lot 4863.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the FEMA office said the lot had been taken. It was crossed off their board. But no one showed up in an RV to say it was theirs. Every other lot has a family, living in their RV, awaiting their turn to get a package. All except for Lot 4863.
“We’ve been going crazy, trying to figure out why. You could have saved us a lot of wondering if you’d just told us.”
Sid smiled.
“But that would have taken away something to gossip and speculate about. You’d have felt deprived.”
“I’ll deprive you of a head, buster.”
She sounded threatening, but Sid recognized a paper tiger when he saw one.
Even if he didn’t, her smile gave her away.
“Honestly, I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret,” Sid said. “I just didn’t think it was important. I figured you all would find out eventually.
“And to be honest, I’ve been trying to get the lot assignment folks to substitute it with another lot on the other side of the lake.
“I explained to them that I really wasn’t comfortable with the prospect of living right next door to a crazy lady. But they told me it was too late. That nobody else wanted to live next door to you either, so I had to suck it up and be the one.”
Gwen spoke up.
“Hey, I know exactly how you feel, Sid. We’ll be living on the other side of her.”
Hannah said, “Very funny, you two. You’re both just jealous because you don’t have my wit and charm and dynamic personality.”
Sid started to say something else but decided anything he added might make things worse. So instead he merely said, “Yep. That’s it exactly.”
Gwen asked Sid if he needed any help.
“No. I’m gonna leave everything here on the tarp until I have a chance to start building. I just need to do a quick inventory, and since I’ve inventoried three hundred similar bundles it shouldn’t take any time at all.”
He checked his watch.
“I have to be over in Area 7 in just over an hour to catch the next delivery…”
It was a not-so-subtle hint.
Sid was saying, in essence, “You folks get out of here, I have work to do.”
They got the hint. They’d leave, but Hannah wanted to offer to help one last time. She liked Sid and felt she wouldn’t be much of a friend if she didn’t make the offer.
“You sure you don’t want me to read the inventory list while you count each item, Sid? I can’t count worth a darn, but I can read pretty good.”
“No thanks. I’ve got this down to a science. You’d only slow me down.”
“Well, now that it’s official and you’re going to live here with us, why don’t you come by after you get off work tonight? We can all congratulate you and welcome you to the neighborhood.”
“Thanks, Hannah. I’d like that.”
The women took Samson for a walk, and Sid went back to his count.
He was still working on it when it was time to leave to meet the helicopter at Area 7.
He’d underestimated the time it took to count every light bulb, every drawer latch, every hinge, every circuit breaker.
When he left Lot 4863, the site of his new home, the building materials were still largely wrapped in the blue plastic tarp, which was still sitting atop the nylon cargo net.
And there it would sit untouched for three weeks, until Tony and Melvyn walked over to look at it and wonder why.
“The rumor I heard,” Melvyn said, “is that Sid pretty much works from dawn to dusk.
“I have a good friend who lives and works at Joint Base Elmendorf – Richardson. His name is Rod.
“Rod says he’s seen Sid drag himself up the steps of his house at the end of an average Friday evening like he’s been through hell.
“On the weekends the guy almost never comes out of his house. Rod thinks that’s when he catches up on his sleep and takes care of his personal business.”
“Which,” Tony surmised, “Obviously doesn’t include time to come out here and work on his cabin.”
“And he can’t ask anybody else to help him because he hasn’t built any equity hours in the co-op. Because he hasn’t helped anyone else with their houses. Because he works full time in his FEMA job.”
“Exactly. In one way, he is helping his neighbors. I mean, he’s the point person in getting everything out here where it’s needed, and in scheduling the lumberjacks and everything else. Without his efforts everybody would be out here stumbling around in the dark, with no materials, no guidance and no help at all.”
“The trouble is there’s no equity program set up for the kind of help he’s giving. And it just doesn’t relate to the kind of help he needs.”
“So what do we do to fix it?”
“We start talking to people.
“And we swear them all to secrecy.”
Chapter 21
The following evening, at a picnic table between the waters of Etlunka Lake and their recreational vehicles, Melvyn and Tony held a secret meeting.
It was secret because not everyone was invited.
And those who were invited were told by word of mouth. There were no flyers posted announcing the get-together or the topics of discussion.
Invitees were carefully selected based on several factors, including their ability to sway others, their individual talents, and their ability to keep their mouths shut.
And where they lived.
One man or woman was invited from each of the ten areas surrounding Block 4800.
Those people were considered the movers and shakers from their respective areas. Those who could get things done. Those with the persuasive powers to get others to come along; to follow them on an important task.
Melvyn and Tony saw their first task to get these people on board.
For these people, if they agreed with the cause and signed on, would motivate others to do the same.
“We’ve called you all together because a mutual friend of us all is in a bit of a bind. He needs our help. We have an idea to help him, but it’s going to take a lot of assistance from a lot of people.”
Someone asked, “Exactly which ‘mutual friend’ are we talking about?”
“Sid Smith.”
“What kind of help does he need? Is he sick?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.
“Sid has decided to become one of us. He went into the processing station and put his name on the waiting list, just like we did.
“He waited his turn, just like we’re doing.
“He probably could have been shady about the whole thing and pulled some strings, but he didn’t. He waited for his number to come up, just like everybody else.
“The problem is, his number did finally come up, and he got his bundle.
“That was several days ago, and the bundle is still sitting there on his lot, just like the day it came in.
“The man obviously wants to be one of us. He’s gone through the process to join us. The problem is he doesn’t have the time to build his cabin, because he’s working a lot of extra hours to help us get into our own places.
“I’ve checked around, and the man is wearing himself out working twelve to fifteen hours a day. When he gets off work each day he has just enough energy to get a quick bite and collapse on his bed. His weekends are mostly spent catching up on the
sleep he loses during the week. And he dares not take any time off to work on his cabin because FEMA has nobody to replace him.
“Not anybody of his caliber, anyway.”
“So what can we do to help him?”
“I’m proposing we build his cabin for him. I’m thinking we can do it in five days if we plan it right.”
“Five days? Are you crazy? It’s taking people two or three months to build their cabins.”
“Yes. That’s because they’re dependent on the lumberjacks who come around and cut down the timbers for each homeowner. They’re spread very thin, and their instructions are to cut down the logs a few at a time. That’s so the homeowners can keep up with them.
“But I’ve already talked to the guy in charge of the lumberjack teams. And he’s already spoken to them about it.
“They know Sid and think the world of him, just as we do.
“They know the number of hours he’s been putting in each week. They’ve been worried about him overdoing it. One of them told Sid not long ago he’d better slow down or he’d have a heart attack.
“As soon as they heard my idea for Sid they jumped on board. They’re all in.”
“In what? What’s your plan, exactly?”
“The lumberjacks take every weekend off to recover. What they do is very strenuous and they work almost as many hours as Sid does. The difference is, they’re a lot younger than Sid.
“I have their assurances they can get enough volunteers to sacrifice half a weekend. They’ll come in next Sunday and they’ll cut enough timber for Sid’s entire two-room cabin.
“Then they’ll notch each of the logs and mark them so we’ll know which ones go where. By the time they go home on Sunday evening we’ll have all the logs ready to stack.
“Then all we’ll need is manpower. Men to place the logs. Men to dig the ditches and lay the pipe for the water system. Men to mix and place the concrete. Men to mix and place the plaster and mortar. Men to install the roof. To build out the doors and frames. The windows and frames. The wiring and electrical fixtures.
“Pretty much everything.
“What we’re looking for are volunteers. If we get enough men to show up on Monday morning we can swarm all over the project like a bunch of bees. By Friday we’ll have the cabin finished and we can surprise him with it.”
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