Chapter 33

I was left alone the next two days. Linc said he was going to get some double-wides bought and delivered up to the new ‘residential section’ near the work site, and he’d coordinate with Clearwater, whom he called Mister Clearwater to his face. Linc really knew how to kiss ass when it would do some good.

Rock needed to study for his finals, so my horseback lessons were curtailed somewhat.

I worked on the drawings for the new chip and the layout for everything that was NOT a factory. I assumed that the Intel site team would take care of that. The current estimate for a rush job was early October. That was just for the factory; the other buildings would be catch-as-catch-can.

I also mentally browsed through a couple of catalogs that Red downloaded. I ordered everything that a well turned-out Dominatrix would need, from spiked heels to a bustier to a flogger. I had them all delivered by express mail to Linc’s motel room. I hope he wouldn’t look. I didn’t want to scare the guy – though I doubted that a man with twenty years in the Marines would be totally unfamiliar with the gear.

After Thursday’s TKD session, I contacted Margu and made arrangements to fly up to Wyoming in Cap’s new Falcon 20 – make that MY new Falcon 20. It’d be a milk run up to Riverton, WY, just to drop her and me off with Dark Wolf, and they’d turn around back to Crownpoint. I, of course, would be staying, probably until Cap was fully licensed. The drop-off pilot from Pan Am wouldn’t want to stay around for long, and Cap wasn’t licensed to handle the Falcon alone, yet.

We were leaving Friday for the Wyoming flight, and I made arrangements with Marylou Deer Horn to take us up to the kiln. The firebrick had been delivered and Margu was eager to get her hands on it. As expected, the flight was uneventful as was the trip to the worksite.

The work crew had been busy up near the kiln site. The kiln itself was roughed in, and they’d been working on an office building nearby. It turned out that a crew of Deer Horns could put together a weather-tight log cabin in a surprisingly short time-frame.

Just on the other side of Bull Lake there were stakes in the ground, marking the proposed site, or sites, for the production sized kilns that we’d eventually build. The Deer Horn family didn’t waste time!

Where Bull Lake fed into the Wind River, on the other side of US Highway 26, was the’gopher hole’ that Dark Wolf had found for me. Silver took me to the dirt road that ran along the cliff overlooking Dry Creek. At this time of year, Dry Creek was roiling with runoff from the snow melt in the ‘almost mountains’ that were the foothills of the Rockies. I got off the scooter near the big rock that Dark Wolf said would be there and scrambled partway down the cliff. Tucked in against the cliff, almost out of sight, was a small, one-room log cabin. THAT was my gopher hole.

There was a window and a door, so I went in. The door could be barred from the inside with a 4”x4” timber, which was against the wall. The room itself had a single bed, a table, and two chairs. That was it. No running water, no plumbing. This was a hole that even a gopher wouldn’t live in. But it would provide a hole where I could hide for a while if I had a gun to chase the wolves away.

On the way back to the log cabin ‘office,’ I stopped some of the unknown (to me) workers who were gathering dirt in a big pile near the kiln, and asked for Marylou. There were about twenty of them, and the one I talked to indicated that she was up at the ‘furnace.’ He pointed to the kiln on the small hilltop. She and Margu were inside the kiln talking. Margu was showing how the double layer of firebrick would butt up against the ceramic insulation. From the looks of it, there wouldn’t be a single bit of wood showing anywhere.

I waited for a break in the conversation. “Marylou, I see you’ve started with the production kilns on the other side of Bull Lake, and you’ve even started gathering the soil around here.”

“I didn’t want to build the office cabin on top of the soil we could use in the kiln,” she explained. “I hope I didn’t mess anything up by hiring the guys.”

“No, not at all. Might as well not waste anything, especially not wasting time,” I agreed. “Any guess how long it’s going to be to lay the firebrick in the test kiln?”

“Margu says it’s going to be at least a month. AT LEAST. And I don’t want to start building new kilns ‘til we know this process works. So, I’ll have to lay them off pretty soon,” she said. “We have plenty of carpentry experience, but not a single damn mason.”

“About that,” I said. “I was over on the other side of the Highway. I have some work for your carpenters. I put some branches out like stakes. I want to build a large ranch building for me to live in. The compound will include a security building, places for the crew here to live, a school for the little ones, and a small airstrip for us to use. In other words, a whole town.”

She stood stock still, thinking. “You’re going to need electric, phone service, a convenience store, a gas station, and other things. We’ve never undertaken something like this.”

“But can you handle it?” I asked her.

“What I don’t know at once, I’ll learn by doing it twice,” she said. Wow! Color me impressed. Quoting Billy Joel from ‘The Entertainer.’ The song was only out three years ago. I didn’t think they played Billy Joel on Radio Free Wyoming. What was next? Was she going to spring ‘Thriller’ on me?

[Unlikely, Lexi. That was a 1982 release.]

“You’ll need to get Bent Nose to approve. It’s a major undertaking for the tribe,” she went on.

“It’s an undertaking for the Spirit of the Hunter, Incorporated, not the tribe alone.” I smiled. “But I’ll get the old man’s okey-doke ... By the way, I’ve got a present for you.” I went to Silver’s storage area and pulled out two radio-phones. “Just remember to say ‘over’ when you’re done talking.”

She laughed. “I’ve used a radio before, don’t worry. Why don’t you put that scooter in the back of my truck, and I’ll run you back to civilization. I’ve got to get Margu set up in the place she’s going to stay. She’s going to stay in Junior’s place. He’s going to stay with Robbie.”

I loaded Silver and then waited. By the time Margu and Marylou got all their business done in the kiln, I swear I could have been mostly back to Fort Washakie. We eventually got ourselves going over the landscape. I’d never say we drove over a road.

“You going to send a grader over some of this moon-scape, someday?” I asked, holding on to the grab bar.

“What’s the point? It’s gonna be snow covered all winter and then it’s going to go back to this.”

Sure. What’s the point of making progress? Maybe it’ll go back to a lumpy pseudo-road and maybe not.

We got to Chief Bent Nose’s tipi, and he wasn’t there. It was 5:30. Where was he? The Powwow show ended at about 4:00. Dark Wolf pulled in some twenty minutes later. We all got out and met on Bent Nose’s porch.