Chapter 15 From the paint shop to Dave’s house
Musical theme: Money for Nothing by Dire Straits
“I feel fine. I want to drive back to your house. Your ranch. Our Texas ranch.”
He walked around and got in the passenger seat. “Are you going to back up so you can go out that way?”
“Guess so.”
“So what do you need to do now?”
“Urr! Get out and look.”
They got out of the truck, and looked at where they were going to back. “If you sweep your trailer to the right a bit, then you can come back into this space, and have a straight shot at the alley. He took out a small bag of lime, and threw a little bit on the ground. “That is where I would put my left rear tandem. But you are driving.”
“I’ll do it just like that.”
“Now you have the alley. Are you going to drive down there without knowing for sure that you can make the right onto that side street and come back out here? Someone gets behind you, and honks their horn, but you can’t go forward, and you have to ask him to get out of the way so you can back out, and someone else comes up behind him and honks their horn?”
“It’s a long walk, but I guess I’d better make it and know for sure.”
They came to the alley. There were garbage cans and junk, but there was space to make the turn, but for a large cardboard box that was close to where the truck would go.
“What if you hit that box?”
“A box.”
“What happens when you assume?”
She paled. “There could be something in the box. There could even be some one in the box.”
She went over and looked. “It’s empty.”
“It’s probably just trash, but it belongs to someone else. Should we respect that person and set the box where we won’t run over it with our truck, just in case he has plans for it?”
“That’s the right thing to do.” She carried the box to the wall of a building, and set it up on end there. They walked back to the Baby, got in, and came out the alley.
“Why did you start in third?”
“Not so noisy. I can idle through here in third, and get on it at the side street.”
“You’re doing everything right.”
“You told me once we were the knights of the highway.”
“Yes, Lady Jillian, I did.”
“We should be safer, more polite, more considerate, and hold ourselves to a standard we expect from nobody else.”
“You’re a real trucker.”
She navigated the side street, turned on the boulevard, and headed for the highway. “To the Texas ranch, drop the trailer, and go get the flatbed?”
“Sounds good to me. Billy has the title?”
“Yeah. And I know where to go to pick it up.”
“Then it’s best we take it. People around here will sell something and then if you don’t take it, they might think they can still use it. What do the tires look like?”
“Not much good.”
“Maybe we should take it to Riley’s and get new tires on it? Repack the wheel bearings?”
“We could do that ourselves.”
“Do you want to?”
“You have air.”
“A 220 volt 10 hp compressor. We have 130 psi.”
Snappy can sell us an 11 thousand pound station jack for $980. A ¾ impact wrench for $420. I got lined up for a 20% discount at Jamison’s auto parts by Larry Jamison. You have concrete out behind the shop. You have a bearing packer?”
“It’s old, but it works. They would be packed, anyway, I would think.”
“Well, I would like to put an auto shop in place of some of your old machines by the rolling doors. Somewhere I could park a truck to work on it, or just clean up when it’s raining or real cold out.”
“Is it going to be worth it?”
“I can save $280 on the wheel bearings. We have two boys to help us, so I figure we do it in an hour. I want the impact wrench and the station jack anyway.”
“That must be a big station jack.”
“It weighs 400 pounds.”
“OK. Let me see about making some space.” He called his power equipment guy, who lined out a trade of the old plywood sander that did not work for a nice little wood lathe with lots of nice tools and accessories. The big planer would go for 3 thousand, and a massive surface grinder would sell for 8. Old stuff Dave had thought was unsalable was worth money now. The buyers were towing a forklift to load with, and they would throw in an hour shuffling equipment. They would wait all day for things to be gotten ready if necessary, so long as Marti fed them.
They went to Dave’s ranch, dropped the bull hauler, and went to get the flatbed. “I’m going to love having a skateboard, Dave. This one has a ramp that will load a D-6. I always wanted a 6.”
“There is a 4 down the street I can use any time. I put in for repairs and stuff. It’s all we need here. Why don’t you get a wide load hauler in and buy a 10 for the Wyoming ranch?”
“Three hundred thousand good reasons. But maybe I should. The 6 is about one fifty, I think.”
“Maybe you should get a 12.”
“I’ve never seen a 12. Now you’re up to about half a million, I imagine.”
“I would not be surprised. I drove one in the Corps. There is a qualitative difference from the small bulldozers. You could take a 12 up to the top of the mountain, and flatten it off. You would leave a good dirt road everywhere you had been. You could put in roads over the whole ranch, dump rock from the slam banger, and flatten it by back dragging.
They headed out to the flatbed, Dave driving and Jillian looking on the net at bulldozers. “There are some old 12s around 250. The new ones are close to 500. My local dealer has one at 487, and free delivery in the county. It says ‘purchase on approval is possible’.”
“I imagine that means you can try it before you buy it.”
“That’s what I want. I want to crush some trees and see if it really does it for me.”
“Think like a businesschick.”
“I could rough in the roads, and if I sold it, I’d maybe get 300, so I would have spent 200 on roads. Another 200 for rocks and motor grading, and it’s up to 400, but we would have access to the whole ranch by motor vehicle. I could get a 10x10 dumper. Use it to distribute feed and such, rock as needed. I already have a 5 yard loader. If I had a full perimeter road, I could run the fence line in not very long. It’s about 10 miles. How much snow could a 10x10 get through with chains?”
“A foot, most likely. The 12 could get through almost anything.”
“How about the motor grader?”
Probably about the same as the truck. A real grader operator, there is no telling what he could do. But wouldn’t you just use a snowmobile anyway, if there was a road?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I don’t have any now because I was afraid they would go play and end up dead.”
With a perimeter road, they could ride their horses. I could insist they never go alone, and never go without radios. Kevin Lake will make them do it.”
“He will.”
“Here is our skateboard.”
Dave looked it over, and checked the license number and looked at the tires. Jillian pulled around with the Baby, and got under the hitch on the first try. She cranked the landing gear up.
Dave walked over to the truck. “Riley’s is ready to put some tires on it. What we have are old crap. I don’t want to recap them. Let’s see how hard you can deal Riley’s down.”
She pulled ahead, and then hit the trailer brakes, and the trailer stopped the truck hard. She went on. She got on the road, and headed for Riley’s. She put her headset on, and speed dialed the Snap on salesman. “Snappy, this is Jillian. Can you come out to the ranch in an hour or so? We’ll have a T bone for you. Great. You have the station jack in your truck? Yeah, my husband wants to look at it, but I think we want it. And the impact wrench. You have the black impact sockets? OK, I want to see the whole candy store. What did your boss say about the discount? Princess Baby Doll Ranch, Inc. Maris Lake, Wyoming. Eleven thousand acres. 25%. If someone else gets it, why not me? I don’t know how many trucks I own. Well, I need some stuff for working on a D-12. I haven’t bought it yet, no. Half a million. It is, but I really want it. Ask the honcho about the roll aways. We are going to want a big one. An hour and a half sounds good. If we aren’t back, call us. Sure. Just pull in behind the shop and park.”
She hung up and threw the phone stuff in the console. “We’re getting 25% off on all Snap on tools, guaranteed for life. They want to sell us a big rollaway. They throw it in with a huge tool set, but we probably don’t need most of it. We need impact sockets and wrenches?”
“I have the ¾ and under.”
“You have no impact wrenches?”
“None. Or sockets. I have socket sets up to ¾, and the ratchets. No sockets over 1 1/8. I have lots of screwdrivers and pliers, stuff like that.
They pulled into Riley’s, and she talked them down on the price for Bridgestones on the skateboard. She let them look over the Baby. She put a drop of oil on each lug stud while they were empty. She looked at each tire, and made sure of its model number, and wrote down all the serial numbers. She was wearing a blue denim coverall and Red Wing Irish Setters with steel toes for the occasion. She had resisted the temptation to put on her hard hat.
“We should have taken it to be washed before you worked on it. Sorry about bringing it in so dirty.”
Nobody has ever apologized for a dirty big truck trailer in a tire shop.
“Where is Maris Lake?”
“A way on from Casper.” Maris Lake is not very close to Casper, but if you have never been to Wyoming, anyway, it does not make much difference. If he was a trucker, she would have said take interstate x to Wyoming y and then turn on county road z, and go up to the top of the hills, and down into the valley, and the valley is the ranch. She would also have claimed it was the prettiest ranch in North America. What difference would such a claim make to someone who chose to live in the mesquites, prickly pears, and dead grass of West Texas? They would not know the prettiest ranch in North America if it reached up and slapped them in the face with a bouquet of columbines.
When the tires were mounted, she went in the office, and to Dave’s amazement, got a 10% farm and ranch discount off the quoted price. She threw radiant smiles all around, and got back in the truck. She headed back toward Dave’s, having Dave call Snappy on the phone. Snappy, actually Jeff, was at the ranch already. They opened the rolling door, and he pulled his truck in. They went into the house.
“It’s not really that cold, but I’m not used to it yet,” Dave said.
Jainie went and fired the inside wood stove.
“It will take 20 minutes to get ready for steaks. Would you like some coffee, Jeff?”
“Yes.”
Jainie shook her head, so Dave made a small amount. “You like it strong, Jeff?”
“Yeah. But if nobody else wants any…”
“You can drink it all. Tell me about the roll away.”
“Well, you get it free with the complete tool set.”
“We want a lot of tools, but not those specific ones. See, I already have a lot of Snap on tools. But mine are the little stuff. My wife is considering buying a D-12 cat, and we have already got that 18 wheeler and a couple of trailers. So she needs things like the big station jack, big impact sockets, 3’ breaker bars, and things like that. If we buy a bunch of that kind of stuff right now, for cash, can we get the Rollaway?”
“I’ll have to discuss that with my sales manager, but come on into the truck and look at the roll away.”
“He led them in, and Dave looked at the nicest tool box he had ever seen, even in his dreams. It had grease sealed ball bearings on every drawer, and they opened almost effortlessly and almost silently. The drawers had plastic inserts to hold sockets, wrenches, and screwdrivers. Some of them had tiny spaces for ignition wrenches and such. Some were huge, with pins to hold gigantic impact sockets for such things as taking the wheels off a big truck, and some even larger.
Jillian moved in. “Jeff, call your boss. If we buy $4,000 in tools right now, can we have this box to put them in?”
Jeff called. “He says all right, but you need to buy $5,000.”
“All right. I have to have the station jack. I want the impact sockets from 2 ½ down. I want the impact drivers. ¾, ½ and the little angle guy there. The big ¾ drive breaker bar, the bearing puller.” She pulled out a ¼ inch drive set with everything. “You can give Dave this set for being so quiet?”
“OK.”
Dave put the ¼” drive set away.
“All five of these combination wrench sets. The ratchet wrenches. This air screwdriver. The bit and driver set for it. And these ratchet wrenches. What am I up to?”
“$4,300.”
“Then I want this pry bar set, and the precision tools. Dave is a very precise sort of guy, Jeff. The die grinder and the accessory set for it. These air hoses, and the fittings set. The files, and the diamond sharpeners. The twist drill set. These reamers, too. And the battery drill set. Where am I now?”
“$5280”
“I have $5000 in cash. Call it even, and we’ll do the unloading work?”
Jeff got on the phone again, and his boss was not real happy, but he approved the deal. They unloaded the tools onto the workbench nearby, the station jack on the floor with a loud smack, and the tool box carefully taken out of the truck with Billy and Larry helping. They went in to eat. Jainie got the $5,000 and handed it to Jeff, who gave her a receipt.
She put some corn and peppers in a steamer, and put the grill on the wood stove. She spread the steaks onto it, and dusted them with Tony Chachere’s salt free seasoning. “Does anyone want theirs more rare than medium rare? Harlan is not here?”
“We don’t know where Harlan is.”
“It’s always like this, Jeff.”
Dave went by with the precision tools and the ¼” drive set, and put them in the safe. He came back in. “Are we going to eat those?”
“Yes, Dave.”
“The guy called with the car hauler.”
“Can you cook?”
“Ow can yew ass ze Flench chef if ‘e can cook?”
Dave turned the steaks and checked on the stuff in the steamer.
Jainie went by talking into a cell phone. “$150,000 cash on delivery. In fact, we will pick it up. No. You might have it for sale for a long time to get top dollar. Well, I don’t really need one. We will go there tonight and get it, but I will have to give you a check if we do it then. Of course it will. Then I will take you to the bank and get you 1500 Franklins. I’m not some drug dealer you meet at night with 150 grand in cash. We will. We’re just finishing dinner with a tool supplier. OK.”
She went back to Dave, and got a steak. “We’re underway again. I’m buying the car hauler for 150. Billy, put some rice or something on if Jeff wants it. His wife may come, and then you can make her a steak. Put those tools in the shop into the tool room and lock it. If Harlan comes in, tell him I need to know where he is if he is not on listed time off. Larry Cold will probably be up soon, so get him a steak too.”
She ate her steak like a sandwich. She threw the bone into the wood stove. “Dave, are you coming?”
“Yes.”
They went out to the Baby, and unhitched the skateboard. “We are not in a hurry, Jainie.”
“Of course we are.”
He got in the passenger seat. “Where is the truck key, Dave?”
“We’re not in a hurry, Jainie.” He said, his tone like a Zen master.
“Where is the key?”
“We are going to wait three minutes for the key.”
“Who has it?”
“I do.”
“Give it to me. We need to get going.”
“We don’t. We don’t need to go anywhere. When the three minutes are over, I am going to ask you to wait another minute to show that you are not in a hurry.”
“What is this all about?”
“Safety. When you had the seizure from wasp stings, it would have made sense for me to drive fast. But this is just the usual pressure receivers put on trucks, and you must know to resist it. You can’t let them declare a state of emergency over a load of goods. It’s just stuff. A year from now, nobody will ever remember when it was delivered. But if you drive too fast, or lose your judgment in any way, you could cause an accident. You could kill a child. You drive an 80,000 pound truck. It’s an awful responsibility. It’s the biggest and most dangerous machine the people let be driven on their roads. And you have the privilege of driving it because they think so much of you. You must make that faith properly given. You must take the responsibility they have given you.”
“I’m a knight of the highway. I’m special.”
“You are.” He handed her the key.
“Let me know when my minute is over.” She put the key into the ignition.
“Nobody can tell you that. You have to take your own minute.”
She started the truck. “Let’s go get our car hauler.”
She pulled out onto the road.
“I may have a job for that trailer.”
“That was fast.”
He dialed. “Garry? This is Dave. Sorry to call so late, but we are just going to pick up the car hauler. From Eugene to where? I’ll need directions. I don’t know where anything is in Montana. Let me ask her. “Jainie, for $4,000 we can take some cars from Oregon to Montana?”
“Sure.”
“OK, we’re on. We will see you probably some time tomorrow. We are just leaving Big Bird, Texas.”
Dave put the address into the GPS navigator. The route made sense. “Jainie, we should be straight into Eugene to see Garry Rawlins, and pick up those cars. I’m going to get some rest. You might need me to drive late tonight.”
“OK”
“You should wake me up to look at the trailer before we buy.”
“My appraiser already did. I’m quite the businesschick. I make money on almost everything I do. The trailer has been checked by mechanics and worked for comparable sales. I could probably sell it next month for 170.”
He went back to the sleeper, took off his shoes, and went to sleep.