Conveniently, she forgot that Jim had been sitting right next to her and had done his own share of flicking.
Of course Dandy’s pride had kicked in. Her attitude had been nothing less than a challenge to him. Her attitude had gotten him killed. Hubris, she thought Sophocles had called it. Whatever it was, she had it and it had gotten Dandy killed.
She had just given up on sleep and was rolling out of bed, the RV shuddering beneath the shifting weight of her 120 pounds, the movement causing Johnny to slide even further down in his bunk than he had been, when she heard the muted roar of an engine, a big one. Mutt, whose nose had been pressed to the door for some time, with attendant whining, gave a short, sharp yelp. “What the hell’s going on, girl?” Kate said, shrugging into a shirt and jamming her feet into her shoes. “Go get ‘em.” If someone was mowing down trees on her property with the blade of a Caterpillar tractor and without her permission, she would know the reason why before she was very much older. If she was lucky, she might get to shoot somebody.
Mutt shot out of the open door and across the clearing like a bullet out of a gun. She vanished up the trail, and shortly thereafter there was a loud yell of alarm followed by a lot of barking.
“What’s going on?” Johnny said, raising his head, his face flushed and his hair mashed to a conehead point.
“I don’t know,” Kate said grimly. “Someone’s got a Cat going. That can’t be good.” She reached for the.30-06 leaning against the door. “Better go back up Mutt.”
His eyes widened, all trace of sleepiness banished, and dove out of his bunk and into his clothes in the same moment. She thought about telling him to stay put, and she thought about how effective that would be, and said only, “Stay behind me. Especially stay behind the rifle.”
He gave her a look and she grinned at him. “Gotta say that. It’s part of the job.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He stayed close behind her up the trail, from the top of which there seemed to be coming a lot of noise of one kind or another.
They met Mac Devlin halfway down. Mutt was standing directly in front of the blade. She was barking and wagging her tail at the same time.
Kate felt as confused as Mutt looked. Behind Mac on his Cat there was quite a crowd: Dinah looking nervous, Billy Mike grinning, Annie Mike dispensing coffee and what looked like a mountain of fresh doughnuts, Auntie Vi and the other three aunties unloading coolers and boxes and grocery bags, Bernie and Enid unloading cases of pop and beer and bags of ice, Dan O’Brian with the whole gang down from the Step, including Dr. Millicent Nebeker McClanahan. Laurel Meganack had baked up a dozen pies, apple and cherry and pumpkin, and Auntie Balasha had a whole salmon carton of fry bread, fresh out of the frying pan if the steam rising off them was any indication.
“What are you all doing here?” Kate said. She caught a glimpse of vehicles lined up down the road and stepped forward. Yep, all the way down to the curve, where she had confronted Roger McAniffe years ago.
“Well, Kate,” Dinah said, shifting from foot to foot, “it’s like this.”
She paused.
“Like what?” Kate said. Next to her Johnny was starting to grin. “What’s going on?” she asked him.
“It’s like this, Kate,” Billy Mike said, taking pity on Dinah’s agony. “We’re going to build you a house today.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You can help,” he told her, “but don’t get in our way.”
She was so staggered that she let him push her gently but firmly to one side of the track.
Mac put the Cat in gear and finished carving out a track, finishing in a neat little circle that would be nice for parking. He roared backward up the trail, dragging the blade to smooth out the tracks, and someone Kate didn’t know pulled up in a dump truck loaded with gravel. Mac packed that down in about thirty minutes and then things really got lively.
Kate had had the well redug and a septic tank put in. The foundation was in over them by that evening. They let the cement cure overnight. Tents sprung up like mushrooms all the way back to the road, and some slept in their trucks, but they all stayed.
“It’s a Lindel Cedar home, Kate,” Dinah told her the next morning. She was still nervous, still unsure. “It’s got two bedrooms and two bathrooms, one full, one three-quarter.”
“Bathrooms?” Kate said.
“And it’s got a loft, just like your old cabin,” Dinah said. “Well, okay, maybe not just like it, but it’s a loft. There’s a covered porch in back that we’re going to extend all the way around to a deck in front.”
“A deck?” Kate said.
“It’s twenty-five by forty-one, only sixteen feet longer than your cabin, which makes it thirteen hundred seventy-one square feet total,” Dinah said. “Four hundred forty-five up and nine hundred twenty-six down.” She saw Kate’s expression and added hurriedly, “I know it’s big, especially compared to the cabin, but you need the extra room now that you’ve got Johnny living with you. You’ll get used to it, I know you will, and pretty soon you won’t even notice-”
“Dinah.”
“Yes, Kate.” With a valiant effort Dinah stilled the trembling in her knees.
“Thank you.” Kate kissed her on both cheeks and hugged her. “Thank you very much.”
“Oh.” Dinah blushed. “Ah. Okay. Good. You’re happy.”
“Tell me how I’m paying for this and I’ll be even happier.”
“Oh.” Dinah’s eyes slid to one side. “Well, you’d have to talk to Billy Mike about that.”
Billy Mike said, “Well, you’d have to talk to Auntie Vi about that.”
Auntie Vi said, “Well, you’d have to talk to Pete Heiman about that.”
“Pete Heiman isn’t here,” Kate said, and then realized the implication. “Wait. Wait just a damn minute here. You mean to tell me you’re putting my new house up with federal money) For crissake, Auntie! What if they find out?”
Auntie Vi gave her niece a pitying look. “Katya, for such a bright girl you are not very smart.”
The frame was up by noon, the trusses, with the help of the cherry picker, four hours later. All they would let Kate do was bring people drinks, so she did. “Thanks, Kate,” Bill Bingley said, laying down a screw gun and flat-footing the Coke she handed him. He wiped his mouth and grinned at her. “Thirsty work, this.”
His wife Cindy was working next to him, and smiled her thanks.
Mac Devlin, now at the controls of the cherry picker, paused in the act of raising a load of shingles to the roof to take a drink. “Fine day,” he said, red face shining with sweat. He might even have smiled.
Auntie Joy scurried by with a nail gun and plucked up two cans of Diet Sprite on the run, tossing one to George Perry, who paused in the countersinking of Sheetrock screws for a cold drink. “God, how I hate Sheetrock dust,” he said cheerfully, and went back to work. Dan O’Brian and Millicent Nebeker McClanahan were stapling electrical cable to the studs right in front of him, and right behind him-“Anne!” Kate said. “Anne Flanagan! What are you doing here?”
“Cutting holes for the outlets,” the minister said, laughing. “Did you think I would miss out on this?”
Bernie and Enid Koslowski were mudding and taping one wall, working together smoothly, like a team who had done this before. On the opposite wall two older women were doing the same thing, one climbing a ladder to work on the open area above the living room, the other holding the ladder. Kate took a second look, unable to believe her first. “Cindy? Olga?”