Chapter 7

As usual, Tom was the first to awaken the next morning, and he was able to take care of his early morning necessities, then get the little coffee maker provided by the motel started before Sandy even stirred. Then, while they were having a coffee and getting ready for their day, they discussed the previous evening and Louise’s situation. However, both of them realized that they couldn’t rescue each and every person they met who was in an unfortunate situation. Besides, from the way Louise had talked, Herman was already helping her out.

“Actually, from what I’ve seen of Herman, he might be offended if we stick our noses into what he might consider to be his personal business,” Tom said quietly. “On top of that, I feel a bit uncomfortable about that situation. It isn’t as if Louise and I were deeply involved, but she seems to have a bit of a crush on me, and I don’t want to encourage her. I’m not about to get involved with her in any way because I think she’d soon be jealous of you, and I really don’t know her all that well, so I can’t say how she’d react to that situation.”

“Yeah, I’d say she has a thing for you, all right. After all, she kept your harmonica safe for years, then as soon as you showed up, she returned it to you,” Sandy grinned. “Besides, I think Artie is going to step in, and I think the two of them suit each other.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Tom sighed. “You were acting so sympathetic toward her last night that I thought you were planning to get involved in helping her with her problems.”

“Not really, though I do understand her situation and sympathize with her to some extent, but not enough to want to get involved. I mean, if someone had passed the hat, I’d have thrown a few bucks in it, but I’m not all that sympathetic either. After all, they do make contraceptives, so I’d say she was partially at fault for her predicament.”

“Yeah, it sounds to me as if she was too trusting, meanwhile, he was a selfish prick and a crook to boot,” Tom agreed.

So after a few minutes of further discussion, they agreed that they shouldn’t interfere in Louise’s situation.

However, both of them felt much more protective about Laura. So when Tom asked Sandy what she knew about Laura’s situation, Sandy explained that Laura had mentioned several things that supported Muriel’s suspicions about Laura having problems at work. The lawyer in charge of the office in which Laura was presently working seemed to be blaming her for each and every trivial problem that cropped up. In actual fact, Laura had proof that he’d caused most of those problems himself, but instead of accepting the blame, he’d done his best to lay them at her feet. In other words, he was an incompetent who was trying to cover his blunders by using Laura as the scapegoat.

“The thing is, Laura realized what was going on weeks ago, and she’s been gathering written proof that the guy is a bungler, but she hasn’t approached any of the senior partners,” Sandy growled in frustration. “My advice was that she should put all the proof in a file folder and pass it on to someone with the power to make changes, but I did tell her to make a complete copy of the file first. That way, her ass is covered if they try to get rid of her without cause. If she has that file and the firm tries to get rid of her, I suggested that she quit the firm; then, she could sue them for defamation of character or something of that sort.”

“Man, do you ever sound mean this morning,” Tom started to grin, then frowned slightly. “Wait a minute, are any of those screw-ups going to be bad enough to trigger a lawsuit or become actionable in any way?”

“That’s something I can’t tell you for sure,” Sandy shook her head. “Still, Laura did look as if she was worried about something, so I suggested she make a copy of her proof of innocence or rather proof of the other guy’s guilt, just in case. I wouldn’t want to see her having to share the blame with a dolt who was out to cause her any problems.”

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Tom agreed. “I think she should make sure that the file containing her proof isn’t kept in her office, though. She might be wise to take it home with her.”

“Actually, she’s going to make an extra copy, stick it in an envelope, and mail it to her home address, but she won’t open the envelope when it arrives,” Sandy grinned. “That way, she has dated proof of the whole thing.”

“Brilliant!” he laughed. “If it does come down to a lawsuit, she could have the judge or a court official open the envelope right in court.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of people doing that when they’re trying to establish a date for a patent application for an invention, but I’ve never heard of a post-office dated envelope being used the way she plans,” Sandy chortled. “I think she’s going to be a real boost to the town of Bear Creek.”

“Well, I have to agree with that, but if she forwards that file to her bosses in the near future, she may be coming to Bear Creek sooner than she planned.”

“Perhaps, but umm ... you know that holiday she wanted to take?”

“Yeah, I agree with her that she deserves a break after putting up with that sort of crap.”

“Well, there is one issue that you might not be so happy about,” Sandy sighed. “She wants to come out to see your mine and spend some time at the cabin with us.”

“Oh boy!” Tom sighed heavily. “I don’t suppose Laura happens to be an outdoor type who does a lot of walking or running, does she?”

“Well, she wasn’t doing that sort of thing when we were in university, but what does that have to do with her coming to visit at the claim? I’m not that much of an outdoor person, other than doing a bit of hunting and camping, so why would she need to be one?”

“Ah, but you visited in the fall, when I flew in. You do remember how I travelled to my claim last spring, don’t you?”

“You don’t plan on going in by mule-train again this spring, do you?” she asked in astonishment.

“Yes, because it costs far less to transport supplies and equipment by mule-train than it does to fly them in with the plane,” he looked at her in surprise. “I thought you knew that was what I’d planned.”

“Oh my!” she sighed softly. “Judging from the pictures I saw, you don’t ride on the mules either, do you?”

“Nope, we load the packsaddles with supplies and lead the mules in a long line, one following the other, which is why it’s called a mule-train. It’s no picnic either, but you saw the pictures JJ took, so you know how tough it can be. We have to climb along a pass that cuts through a minor mountain range, for gosh sake,” he paused for a second and frowned. “We were trying to work out the distance we travelled last year and although we know it’s only about eighty miles or so as the crow flies, we decided we went at least half again that far. Since it took us almost a week to get there and we felt we averaged at least twenty miles a day, we had to have walked at least a hundred and twenty miles and perhaps more. Personally, I think it was more likely that we covered double the straight line distance, which would mean that we walked about twenty-three miles a day.”

“Wow, I don’t know if I can walk that far in a day. Did you carry a full backpack too?”

“I did last year, but I won’t wear a fully loaded pack this year. I’ll rent an extra mule instead, then all I’ll carry are emergency supplies, a water bottle, and some energy bars,” he smiled. “Before the distance scares you off though, you should realize that an average person walks just over three miles an hour. So if you were in good shape, you could walk twenty-four miles in an eight-hour day with hardly any problems and without even working hard.”

He paused for a few seconds, then snorted loudly, “Hey, do you remember the day we flew up to the lake and hauled all of our supplies uphill to the cabin? That hike is close to three miles each way. You made the round trip three and a half times, but you were loaded down with about sixty pounds in your backpack on the four uphill legs of the trip. In other words, you walked about twenty-one miles that day and carried a total of about two hundred and fifty pounds of extra weight during the uphill climbs. In other words, you’re tougher than you think you are.”

“Darn, it’s no wonder my legs felt like rubber for the next couple of days,” she shook her head, then grinned. “I think this year I’ll plan on walking to and from work every day for a few weeks before we leave for the cabin. Maybe you and I can do some hiking on weekends too?”

Tom just grinned and nodded, then suggested they’d better go have breakfast before it got too late in the day. While they were eating, they planned what they wanted to do that day and agreed to split up and meet again in the afternoon. Sandy had several places to visit which were within walking distance of each other, so Tom dropped her off, then went off on his own errands. His plans for the day were to meet with two or three men who were trying to make a living by building equipment that wasn’t sold by mainstream manufacturing or sales outlets.

First, Tom wanted to speak to a man named Welch about a wood-burning kitchen stove he was building locally from imported parts and which sounded as if it would be perfect for the cabin. However, Tom wanted to see if he could buy the separate parts as a kit that he could break down into lighter-weight segments for easier transport on the mules, then he could put it together at the cabin. He had called Brian Welch early that morning to arrange a meeting, but after the search for an address the previous day, he made certain to get explicit directions. As it turned out, that was a very good decision because he would have never found the Welch’s home otherwise since it was off a long, winding road which ran through heavy timber. The timber grew so densely that if he hadn’t been warned to be on the lookout for specific landmarks, he’d have driven right past the gateway to the property he was trying to find.

When Tom stopped his rented car in the driveway, he paused to look around for a moment. He quickly decided that the people living there were somewhat kindred spirits in their feelings about nature, but they had taken things much further than he planned. Their home and workshop looked to be as ecologically friendly as possible, to the point where both the house and the workshop were dug into a hillside. Only the south-facing fronts of both buildings were exposed, and those two walls were mostly glass, then were topped by a line of solar cells. Higher on the hillside above the house and workshop, a pair of wind generators spun slowly in the breeze.

When he met them, Tom found that Brian and Linda Welch even laughingly referred to themselves as eco-freaks, but they quickly added that neither of them was militant about their beliefs. However, once they found that he was interested in the same energy-saving devices and ideas they had used, he was given a complete tour of both the home and workshop. They were just as interested in learning about his cabin and his much greater isolation with its attendant problems. Inside of only a few hours, the three of them became fast friends, and Tom felt that Sandy should meet them both. When he mentioned the idea, both Brian and Linda readily agreed, but Linda insisted that Sandy should come out and see what they had done and how they lived.

Late that afternoon, as Tom drove back to town to meet Sandy, his mind was awash with ideas spawned by what he had seen that day. In fact, it wasn’t until he saw Sandy and pulled the car over to pick her up that he realized he hadn’t even mentioned the idea of buying a kitchen stove while he was there.

“Well, how did your day go?” Sandy asked when she climbed into the car.

“To put it mildly, I was completely blown away by what I saw and the people I met,” he shook his head in continued wonder. “I hope it doesn’t upset any of your plans, but we’re invited back to visit them this evening. I’ve tentatively accepted because I really think you should see their home and what they’ve done. I’m still having a hard time accepting what I saw there. They have an unbelievable number of innovations they’ve bought, modified, developed, or invented.”

“We can do that, but I’d like to pick up my purchases and change first,” Sandy looked slightly surprised. “I take it you were able to make a deal on whatever you were going to buy?”

“To be honest, I was so far out of my depth that buying things completely slipped my mind,” he laughed. “I hope your day went as well as mine did.”

“Hmm, yes and no,” she sighed. “I couldn’t find a lot of what I was after in normal stores, so I spent the day haunting used stores and antique shops. I’ve made several purchases, but had them set aside for now, which means we have to drive around and pick them up.”

“Oh, what were you buying?”

“Hand-operated kitchen equipment, oil lamps, lanterns, lots of things of that sort, all of it for the cabin,” she chuckled. “I even bought a bunch of camping stuff, including another solar-powered battery charger and a flashlight which is powered by shaking it. I’ve also decided that I’m going to twist your arm about the trip to the cabin this spring.”

“You still want to fly in, don’t you?”

“Unh huh. In fact, if I’m right about my suspicions concerning Laura’s situation, she’ll be flying in with us. I met her for lunch, and we had a chat about what happened at her office today.”

“Oh? Care to fill me in?”

“Well, she starts early, so when she went in this morning, the first thing she did was to make those copies we were discussing. She mailed one set to herself and dropped other copies into the office’s internal mail, addressed to the three partners who own the firm. By lunchtime, the whole office was in an uproar, but nothing definite was being said, so she didn’t know what sort of situation she was going to be met by after lunch. By the way, she used company records to research a few years back, so she won’t be the only articling student or fledgling lawyer who is affected in the shake-up.”

“So this guy has done the same thing previously?”

“Oh yeah, Laura said that at least six others who are presently working there had to have been affected by his actions.”

“Well, why wasn’t anything done previously, or does she know?”

“She says that she thinks the rest of them did screw up a time or two, but she’s a bit of a perfectionist about paperwork and she’s positive she didn’t make any errors,” Sandy sighed softly. “Only I can’t see her being welcomed into the office with a job after this. Since she was the whistleblower, I think she’ll get her walking papers, but perhaps with compensation of some sort.”

“In a way, losing her job over the situation is too bad, but if you’re right, we may come out of the mess with a new lawyer in Bear Creek, which won’t hurt my feelings at all.”

“Hah, if I’m right, she’s going to get a golden handshake for proving the guy was a crook and a creep. I’m betting the partners in the firm will let her go, but at the same time, they’ll make sure she leaves with a darn good bonus and perhaps even some additional backing for her startup.”