Evening Star Ranch by Drake Koefoed - HTML preview

Danny said, “She did.  All of her stunts are real.”

They talked about guns for a while, and Danny managed to sell Jeff a leather holster for his 7.  Jeff and Chenille went out to the ranch and blew away some cans.  They came back to the ranch house, and Jim chatted them about Syd and her 7mm pistol.  Jim had nothing going on, but tomorrow he might.  They put their brass in coffee cans and went back to Chenille's house.  Once there, they got some food out and made supper.

“I just heard the SEALs turned Syd down on the seven.”

“I heard that yesterday.  The Army is the main player in this.  It does not want to give up the nine by nineteen parabellum because of tooling costs.  H&K might own a few senators.  It isn't going to wreck little Syd's day.”

“The nine is a piece of junk.  A semi auto .38.  All they had to do was change the 1911 to the 1991.”

“Tell it sister.”

“Which is the best, 30-06 or .308 , 9x19 or .45 ACP, what should the military buy?”

“I would go with 30-06, the M-1 or the M-14.  .45 ACP would be all right, but I would take 7 silver over it.  I'd chamber the SAW for 7 silver.  The M-60, I would replace with something in a 7mm, with a super high velocity round, like, say, 3,800 fps.  I'd sell the M-16s for whatever I could get.  The .223 is a good round, but the 16 is a piece of shit no soldier should be issued.”

“It's so hard to get your opinion.”

“Do you want some more shrimp?”

“Yes.  Wouldn't a 7mm machine gun be redundant to the subguns?”

“No.  The subguns are high cyclic pieces for house to house fighting.  The belt fed 7 would be more like a 7 mag.  Like a 300 rpm MG.  Day/Night scope.”

“It would be really loud and really deadly.”

Jeff smiled.  “I bet you would like to fire it.”

“Oh, for sure.  Rock the Casaba.”

“You could hear it from a way off.”

“Five miles.  300 rpm, a super velocity 7mm.  You could hear it.”

“What would it sound like?”

“Nothing you have ever heard.  Sort of  Brrrrappp, with a sound like canvas being torn.  A terrifying sound.  Eerie, unnatural.  The super seven would scream.  An awful sound like nothing you have ever heard.”

“She's working on a 25.5 mm recoil-less.  It's supposed to weigh less than 20 pounds, and a cyclic rate of 225 rpm.  Effective at 6 thousand.  Twice the power of a 20 mike mike.”

“There were a few times I would have liked to have one of those.”

She went in the cabin.

In a while, Jeff came in, and they took a break for a little night time thing.

* * *

In the morning, they went to the house, and found Jim and Cindy watching “The making of Devil's Daughter II”.  Narrating were Syd Silver, stunt co-coordinator Pete Wilson, and the two main stunt guys of the series, Sergio Michaelovich Pavlov, and Grigory Wasisneusesueski.   They were interviewed by “The lovely and talented Cheryl Rand”, who did not jump out of windows or crash buses for a living.

The scene opened with Syd jumping out of a third story window with a .223 SAW in one hand and an ax in the other.

Cheryl asked, “Pete, how was this done?”

“Well, Cheryl, what we did was, Syd jumped out of the third story window with the .223 SAW in one hand, and the ax in the other, onto the roof of the bus.”

“On the film, Syd chops a hole in the roof of the bus, and jumps in with the machine gun.  And here she kicks Sergio out the window.  That's not pavement where Sergio is landing.  It looks like pavement is all.  Now we have Syd shooting into the back of the bus.  The boys are not there, of course.  One hand on the steering wheel, the other on the machine gun.  This is the footage we wanted.  Here comes the part we didn't want.”

Syd loses control of the bus, which she has been driving with one hand, steering by  looking out the back.  The bus goes through a corner display window, hits a small car, and overturns, falling onto its side, and taking a 360 before going into the lobby of a hotel.

Pete said, “Three and a half million dollars.  We couldn't see any way to use it.”

Cheryl asked, “Where were you, Syd?”

“In the bus.”

“That must have been scary.”

“I put the SAW on safe.”

“While the bus was sliding?”

“Why would I safe it after the bus stopped?”

“Were you afraid?”

“No.  I knew I missed Sergio.”

“Sergio got hurt, though.”

“I  dislocate my shoulder.  This happens second time.  Doctors say it happens again.”

“Does it hurt?”

“I am stunt man.  I don't want to be hurt, I be hairdresser, you think?”

Jim stopped the player.  “I want to get all the old chain saw junk out of here.  Can you sell the Chinese stuff?”

Chenille said, “We can, but they won't go for much.”

“I want a standard.  If we have Martina 18's, then that is all we have.  So every chain fits every saw.  We have one spark plug.”

“Martina took Henry Ford all the way.  Do you know how many bars will fit on a Martina 12?”

“I suppose several of them.”

“All of them.  A 12 won't be able to do a thing with the 60 bar, but you can put it on if you want.”

“Why are they rated by inches of bar instead of cubic centimeters?”

“Nobody liked cubic centimeters.  Same reason diesels are rated in shaft horsepower.  Everyone has a calculator or a spreadsheet to convert units.  There are ten thousand nonsense power ratings, and then there is shaft horsepower.”

“I want to buy some 18's.  Get rid of all the stuff we have lying around.”

“We can do that.”

Cindy keyed up the movie itself on the second drive of the DVD.  “This is the traffic stop scene.”

A bright red Ferrari goes past a traffic cop making a few knots.  The cop takes out and and pulls the car over.  The driver, of course, is the Devil's daughter, played by Syd Silver.

“I'm stopping you for 210 in a 35.”

“I need to get this car tuned up if that was all it was doing.”

“I'm arresting you for reckless driving.”

“You were going just as fast, but you can't drive for shit.”

The cop pulled out his baton, and the Devil's daughter beat him senseless.  She hung him by a handcuff from a conveniently located bridge, took his gun, burned his car, and took his wallet.  The pundits who said she couldn't act were shown wrong in that scene, where she snarled at the cop and threatened him with extreme violence.  In the real world, Syd Silver rescues kittens from trees, buys lunch for homeless people, and volunteers for her local Sheriff's department's search and rescue effort.

Chenille asked, “Is that her car?” 

Jim said, “It was, but she wrecked it.  She has a Maserati now.  She had to give six for it, but a girl needs a car.”

“Six?”

“You can't expect her to drive a half million dollar car, Chenille.”

The movie went on.  A huge collection of cars and helicopters cornered the Devil's daughter on the top of a hillside.  She jumped into an enormous drag line crane, and swept cars over the side.  A helicopter landed next to her, and she jumped in, threw the pilot and co-pilot out, and took off.  She flew under power lines and down city streets.  A hurricane came to visit, and the Devil's daughter went to Cameron, Louisiana and stole an offshore supply vessel.  She took off into the Gulf of Mexico, headed for Cuba.  The movie ends with the big steel boat climbing impossibly big seas, and the Devil's daughter extending her middle finger.

Jim laughed.  “Arnold has nothing on that chick.  Did you know she really drives drag line cranes, helicopters, and ships?”

Chenille said, “I'm going to borrow Jeff for the saw job.  We will sell your junk for you and then buy a bunch of Martina 18's.  You won't get much for the Chinese crap.  Everyone else wants to get rid of it too.  We'll do what we can.”

Jim laughed.  “Take him.  He never does anything anyway.  Can you get me another movie?”

“We'll see.”

She got two of them, and the poster with the middle finger, autographed “Fuck you, Jim.”

Chenille and Jeff cleaned up the saw shop, and repaired the Chinese saws.  They sold them all on their own web site, off the store shelves, and on eBay.  When they were getting most of it gone, Chenille sent Jeff to a shop in Kentucky that was buying all the left over saws and parts.  Jim brought Jeff back for a grueling paperwork job, including taxes and long neglected corporate records.  It was more fun than pumping a septic tank with a coffee cup, but not much.  At least, the contents of the coffee cup were more palatable.  

Steve bashed a Mercedes with one of the farm trucks.  The lawyer representing the owner of the Mercedes sued Jim personally, rather than the insurance company.  Jim had admitted sending Steve to the grocery store.  The insurance company made a policy limits offer, but the lawyer refused it, looking for a judgment against the ranch.  The court ruled that the policy did cover incidental use for personal needs, and the Mercedes owner sued the lawyer for malpractice.  Jim thought it was “As much fun as watching skunks fight.”

It was less fun getting audited by the IRS.  Jim and Jeff spent 8 days being dragged over the coals.  Cindy got left out of it, because Jim said, “I would no more tell my wife about my business than I would go down to the bull pen and try to beat them up bare handed.”

The truth was, Jim told Cindy everything, and would not hesitate to kick a bull in the face.  

As the audit ran down, Randy Scott, the auditor, said, “I haven't found anything wrong.  This puts me in a hard place, because I am expected to find something wrong.”

Jim held up a hand to his accountant.  “Randy, what if we say I made inadvertent errors in the amount of $3,431.62?”

“That would make things work out well.”

The accountant said, “You're giving money away.”

Jim said, “Just to my country.  Let's get the paperwork done.”

The sun set that day on Jim paying taxes he had never owed.

 

 

Chapter 6

 

“When I really started to get good at my job, I knew than anyone can lie, and many can lie and be believed, but the best trick is to tell the truth and not be believed.” -- General Lane, reputed to be the director of ACD, which does not exist.

 

In the morning, Jim took Jeff to a little house on the outskirts of town that had about 5 acres with it.  They looked it over inside and out.

Jim asked, “What does it need?”

“No telling on the foundation and all, but otherwise, paint, some plumbing and electric work, nothing I can't do if you want the place.”

“If it was yours, what would you want?”

“A fishpond in back, and Chenille's approval.”

They went to the back, to a little cabin much newer than the house.  “Could you keep this place up for a selected tenant?  Keep it nice for the next 20 years?”

“That's a long term.”

“If you had the house, could you consider something like that, you and Chenille?”

“We could.”

“Show it to her.  Here is the key.”

Chenille loved the place.  There was a shop by the front house that could house Jackson Saw Works, if that was ever needed.  The house had some nice lilac bushes and such around it, and a nice perennial bed in front.  Far back, there was space for a horse, or maybe a milk cow, one of Chenille's dreams.  Chenille was into the romantic concept of having her own milk cow.  Jeff intended to leave it on the back burner until it became feasible, and then let her find out about Jersey cows.  The milk of a Jersey is so rich that you can make butter off the top and it still tastes richer than commercial 'whole milk.'

Chenille was dancing in the meadow, so Jeff knew she wanted the place.  He left her at the Saw Shop, and asked Jim what it was all about.

“Estate planning, Jeff.  If I put you in this place, you have to keep it up, and maintain the little place in back for Cindy.  So that she always has somewhere to stay near town.  What would you do with the ranch if you had to decide, and I was dead?”

“Sell to an agribusiness company like Con-Agra, and start a business doing something like dive boats on coral reefs.  Put Cindy in the penthouse of a luxury hotel.”

“That might be a good move, but I have to let my son run the ranch.”

“And your daughter?”

“Anita would be for plan A, but she would want to own the hotel.”

“Junior not being a hotel kind of guy.”

“Junior wants to run the ranch, and I intend to let him.  I'm making a maze of financial backstops for Cindy, but he is going to have the power to run the ranch to success or failure.”

“So that is who the tenant is.”

“She will need to be closer to her friends.  She will have a financial interest in the ranch, but if Junior blows it, she will still have her place in town, and her ersatz family of you and Chenille.  That understood, do you two want this house?”

“We do, but there are questions about payments, costs of improvements and all, that we have to think out.”

“I want you and Chenille to do the work.  I'll pay for materials.  I'll pay for contractors to do this and that.  I'll set up an income stream to pay taxes and keep up the little house.  I'll dig the fishpond.  You will take care of Cindy.”

“What if she needs nursing care and all that?”

“Insurance.  She will have it.  If it gets to where she cannot be cared for at home, you will still get her every Saturday and have her over for tea.”

“I think all that can work.”

“We'll talk about it all later.  I have some trucking work for you to do.”

* * *

In the morning, Jeff and Chenille looked at the little place again.

“I don't see how we can turn this down, Jeff.”

“You would be a party to it, too.”

“Cindy is like my mom, almost.  I don't mind that.  We would do this for her anyway.”

“It's for a long time.  I think we will last that long, but it is a long time.”

“Let's look at the fishpond spot.”

They went out back, and Chenille sketched out the pond, a 1 ¼ acre monster that would come up to near the junipers hedging the land on the south and west back behind the houses.  It came to the pecan orchard west, behind the little house.  There was a seasonal creek that cut the south west corner of the property, and it would be needed to fill the pond.  “That will do it, Jeff, he won't agree to this.”

The thunder of big machines came on, and was followed by the thunder of a late season storm.  Jim had called Chenille's bluff, and Mother Nature had called everyone's.  Several days of mild flooding came along, and a lot of people got unscheduled days off.  When the sun came out, Jeff and Chenille signed all the papers.  Derrick came back from private business in the West, and brought some bluegill, which he put in the new pond.  The Game Warden questioned the planting, Derrick punched him out, and Jim had to go his bail.  Eventually, the Court was informed that the fishes had come from the legendary Nowhere Quarry in Texas, owned by the eccentric billionaire Tom Hearns.  The prosecution proceeded like a fire started on the dry end of a wet stick.  Hearns said “I imagine he had about 500 fishes.  I have about 500 million fishes, and nobody is bothering me.”

Hearns donated 25,000 tons of rock to the repairs of the roads in the poor county.  Most of it was delivered by ore haulers, which are, to paraphrase Marcie Della, 'bigger than you might think.'  The enormous trucks drove through creeks and rivers like a car drives through a mud puddle.  They towed disabled cars, trucks, and motorcycles.  Mammoth excavators pulled rubbish out from above threatened bridges.  Loaders as powerful as tank retrievers came along and did a little of this and that.

When the water receded, one tracklaying backhoe was parked in the street in front of the new house.  It had thrown a track.  Jeff and Chenille looked on amazed, as the repair crew rolled it onto a new track, and laid the broken one over the engine compartment.  They didn't see the super heavy lift crane that put a section of a bridge back in place by driving into ten feet of water.  The crane was towed out of the river by six Caterpillar D-8 bulldozers with a lot of very heavy chain.

* * *

Jeff and Chenille sat next to the pond.  “I'm glad to have the pond full, but not the way it happened.”

“Yeah, that was one heck of a storm, Chenille.”

“What if there were no quarry men and no heavy equipment contractors?”

“We'd need emergency equipment and people we could not afford.”

“We can't afford this house, either.”

“Jim's making it possible.”

“Why, Jeff?  I'm not surprised that he wants to do something for you; he has probably been thinking on that for a while.  But why now, and all this estate planning talk?”

“If he was sick, that would make sense.”

“So it's not ordinary illness.  Cancer.  He isn't afraid to die, he is afraid of what will happen after that.  It's terminal, and inoperable.  He is letting go of authority.  He's afraid of what he might not be able to do later, handing control over to others.  He has a brain tumor, Jeff.”

“Your reasoning may go beyond the facts, Holmes.”

“Not likely, my dear Watson.”

* * *

They tore up the floor of the front house.  The back one was on concrete, but the front one was on cedar mud sills.  There is a short time in the life of a craftsman when he is old enough to know how to pour a new concrete slab under an existing building, and young enough that his back will let him do it.  Being in that time, Jeff took up the floor of the entire house, and wrestled in the 6-6-10-10 wire reinforcement.  Without a tough chick to support him, he would never have managed it.  J.J. Cale said 'If you want to hang out, you have to take the route.'  Chenille and Jeff took the route, embedding several tons of agate pebbles into the surface of the slab, and then grinding and polishing it.  Jim was very pleased with their work.  They were not making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but they were making a lovely pigskin purse.

Jim eventually told them exactly what Chenille had guessed.  The tumor was inoperable, chemotherapy could possibly delay the inevitable, but destroy his quality of life in the meantime.  Radiation, even if it had been possible, would be a curse of its own.  Jim expressed something Jeff had never thought of.  Although he was sad that Cindy would be left alone, he was enjoying putting everything in place.

As they walked around the little house, with Jeff telling them how he planned to fix it up, Cindy went from happy to see everything being done like she liked, and realizing she would be alone with it.

“Cowgirl up, Cindy.  It isn't like I ever expected to be immortal.  We had a good run, and maybe you can even find another guy down the trail a bit.”

“There will never be one like you, Jim.”

“Don't be like that.  There are other good men.  Women say all the good ones are taken, but they are really talking about all the rich, handsome, charming fast talkers are taken.”

“I've had it all.”

“You've had a great life, but it doesn't end here.”

After they left, Chenille said “That could be us in not too long.”

“If I could be as solid as Jim, maybe.”

“That's the easy part.  Cindy has the hard one.  She is the one with the ocean of grief ahead of her, and nothing to do about it.”

Jeff stared into the distance.

“Drink a beer, go home, or get to work.  Jim isn't paying you to be a philosopher.”

Jeff went back to copper pipe plumbing.  He had the sheet rock off here and there, and was putting in new lines because the old iron pipe was very rusty.  The hot water lines, as usual, were the worst because of the heat they had endured.  Some of them couldn't make water faster than a cat.  Fast or slow didn't matter much, because Jim's rule was that if you could get at some old junk, you should replace it.  Knob and tube electrical was to be torn out on sight.  Jeff sold that stuff on eBay to people who needed it.  

The local guys laughed at Jeff putting a dielectric union where he changed from iron to copper.  Our readers are laughing.  Yes, Magda, that's right.  The differential electrode potentials of iron and copper and an intimate connection between the two sets up a wet cell.  When the tap water, an electrolytic solution, is added, electrolytic corrosion is inevitable.  The local guys laughing about dielectric unions knew as much about chemistry as an armadillo knows about integral calculus.  

Jeff quietly took out the iron pipe and put in the copper.  Chenille was re-wiring the house.  When Jeff looked up, two green lizards were watching him.  He turned away, and finished his solder joint.  He thought about the prettiest girl he had ever seen.  There was nothing wrong with Chenille, certainly not her looks.  You had the long blonde hair, the long legs, the blue eyes.  The pert, perfectly formed... all of that.  The other one was young, and likely silly.  She had her hair going in every direction, without any sign of intention.  Her waist was so small that Jeff's hands could have encircled it.  She was dressed in some old jeans, and a tee shirt advertising a soft drink.  She gave Jeff a nice smile as he passed.  And it was all over.  Jeff's friend Dale had gone through a moment like that when he and she were about 40.  Dale stopped and said, “Are you …?”

She said “Yes.”  She took his hand, and told him he was hers, now and forever.

With Chenille, there had been no magic.  It was as if the Fates had told him “That one in the green sweater is yours.”  He loved her, if love was what it was said to be.  He didn't want someone else.  What he wanted was a history of some magical moment that had never happened.

The old pipe wouldn't come out, so Jeff dragged over 'the hidden persuader', a 36” Rigid pipe wrench in aluminum; a fantastically expensive tool.  He locked it to the pipe, and jammed it against the wall.  He put up the 18” steel wrench, and kicked it.  The pipe wrung with a satisfying snap.  Chenille came and picked up the big wrench.  “If you ever leave me, Jeff, I am taking this wrench.”  She bashed some of the bare studs with it.

“You can get them in 72”, even.”

“I like this one.  In aluminum,though, it seems fake, sort of.”

“You can get bigger ones in steel.  I think I have seen an eight foot one at an oil rig.”

“They must have them bigger than that.”

“They might.  In the oilfield, as soon as something gets big and heavy enough to be hard to throw around, they tend to move to something much bigger.  So they have this wrench that can put on 600 foot pounds of torque, but if that is not enough, they get some winch thing that has 20,000 foot pounds.  You might lift something that weighs 75 pounds, but any more than that, they will pick it with the crane.”

“Well, how do you guys do the macho thing, then?  What's the roughest job offshore?”

“I dunno.  I have a pic of a crane operator, little bitty girl, sitting barefoot in her little nest, looking down at the deck of the supply vessel to see when they want to send the load up.  They called her 'Silkie' because she was so smooth.  That won't do for macho, though.”

“No, it won't.  We might have to watch some Clint Eastwood movies, or maybe Syd Silver.”

“'Are you the bad guys?'”

“ Allison was so cool.” 

The line referred to was when Allison's character, (Syd's sidekick), meets the bad guys.  Allison asks them if they are the bad guys.  The baddest of the bad guys, played by Grigory Wasisneusesueski, says “We are not bad.  We had a hard life as children.”  At that point, the firefight starts.  The sound effects are real.  Automatic rifles and belt fed machine guns make as much noise as they really do.  Little Syd settles it with LAW rockets.  Loud really does not say it.  Law  rockets (light antitank wire guided) are ridiculous overkill for the situation in the movie, but they would certainly work, just like the movie makers faked it.  Syd fires real Law rockets, but they had to fake the receiving end, because of course they wanted Wasisneusesueski for the sequel.

Jeff pulled some of the old pipe out.  All of it would go to the ranch.  Jim used every piece of metal he could and sold the rest for scrap.  The ranch had lots of old axes, hatchets and hammers that had pipe handles welded to them in lieu of the long ago broken wood.  

They got their own place in shape to move in, and then left the many loose ends to be gathered later.  Cindy had said she would not move from the ranch soon, but they felt like Jim wanted to see the little house done up nice.  Chenille's idea was that he would be more at peace knowing he had Cindy taken care of.  They cleaned the outside of the little house with a pressure washer from the ranch.  It was not one of those made in China junkers, but a powerful machine that would blow out a window if you were careless.  They wire brushed, prepped inside too, and brought over a nice airless that belonged to the ranch.  A Binks with lots of accessories.  They shot the little house inside and out, and rolled the sub-floors with porch and floor enamel.  They did the trim, and replaced some of the appliances.  One of the less necessary but very nice new ones was a very small Hobart commercial dishwasher in matte stainless.  Jim did not go in for the silly stuff like a commercial stove.  As one chef put it, “Using one of those at home is like slicing grapes with a meat cleaver.”

The ranch hands cleared out the weeds, and deadwood pruned the trees.  They disked down the weeds among the pecan trees, and put up Texas pride style fences, where you could sight the fence line, and not one post was out of place by a half inch.  They fenced in a cow pen with telephone poles going through the pond, allowing the cow access to the water.  They built a milking shed with space for storing hay and cattle cubes, etc.  It was built on the telephone pole shed concept, which would allow Jeff to add lots of shelves, hangers, and cow paraphernalia.  Curly prevailed on the idea that since they had all these tall poles free, they might as well have loft above.  They built the loft door and hoist frame so that loose hay could be put up there, however unlikely that was.  Wood handled tools and various things would end up there.

Jim came alone when nobody was there except Jeff and Chenille.  Chenille knew everything anyway, so there was little point in excluding her.  Jim took them for a walk around.  He made a list of things to do with Cindy's house.  He had them put primroses along the path to the little house.

“I'm going to tell her I am finally leading her down the primrose path.  It's a private joke with us.  I like the way the house is turning out.  Carpet can wait.  She will decide on that.  The light and temperature controlled bug lights over the pond will be great.  The vegetables, too.  She is going to need to can vegetables and milk the cow and all that.  She's used to activity.  She won't take to sitting still.”

“There will be lots of little things, watering, weeding and so, something to do.  We might think about establishing some flowering shrubs.  They would be something that needs attention now, and later, when she gets older and less energetic, they will need less care, and look even better.  A sense of accomplishment built on a real accomplishment.”

“That's good thinking, Jeff.  She doesn't need to make money, but then, I really didn't either.  She can sell pecans and things like that.  She won't compare what is made on pecans to what is made on cattle.  She asked me if we could afford the pickup she wanted, because it was a little more expensive than she thought it would be.  30 for a truck she has been driving for 10 years.  I drove her down to the dealership with the bull hauler.  Brand new Western Star tractor, and an almost new cattle trailer behind it.  I bought a lowboy trailer and our D-6, and a motor grader that same month, taxes having to do with it all, of course, and she wants to know can we afford a little pickup.  I told her we could, and if we didn't get it, she would have to take the Western Star to the grocery store.”

Jeff and Chenille laughed.  “What did she say to that?”

“I don't think there is space to park it down there.”

They laughed again, but Jeff could see the fun that had kept them together for all those years.  Cindy had probably believed she might have to drive the Western Star because they could not afford a pickup.

“Tom  Hearns couldn't pull that on Alice.”

Jim laughed this time.  “Alice buys an 8750 drag line for two million, so she knows about expensive toys.  If you read Fortune,