Chapter 3

After the short funeral service out side on the front lawn of the house Tim took three of the jerry cans inside and poured fifteen gallons of gas in the carpets.

When he came out it was like he might have been saying a silent good bye. He stood at the door for a short while.

After a minute he struck a kitchen match and threw it inside.

There was a whoosh and the inside of the house was filled with flames.

Tim drove his golf cart to the wooden bridge. He poured his remaining can of gas out on it and threw another match.

When they were all back at the dock Tim gave his final orders. The sea plane was to be set on it's cradles on a work barge.

The last of the vehicles were to be loaded.

The generators running the well pump and shop lights were to be shut down and loaded.

Each tug captain was to hook to a house barge and then two work barges.

Tim asked if there were any one of the passengers that had enough experience to help run the big sea going yacht.

The Doctor spoke up. He and his family were already on board it.

The young widow said she had been a part of the crew on her fathers shrimp boat since she was a child. She had spent many hours at the wheel.

She said she could operate the ship.

Tim asked her if she would mind moving her gear to that vessel for the three day trip to Galveston.

Tim told every one that he had been planing to leave at day light the next morning.

Now that the group of blacks had found them, he had changed his mind. They might have been a part of a larger group and the others might come looking for them.

Every thing went smoothly and the first Tug cast off and picked up it's tow in less than an hour. Five minutes later the second Tug was underway. Right behind that the third Tug joined the parade.

Tim had cast off and backed the yacht up stream before any Tug had cast off. He was making room for the Tugs to hook up.

Tim brought up the rear.

He had told every one "No lights until the ships channel below Mobile".

At an idle the Tug's engines would probably not be heard on shore.

The house yacht was completely silent at an idle.

The widow and the Doctor were with Tim on the bridge. ( Her name was Cameroon McDaniel Douglas) ( Cami for short ) As they passed the shrimp docks at the mouth of the Dog River she borrowed the binoculars and looked them over well.

She put them down and said her father's boat was not there. She said " Maybe he and my mother got away".

The lead Tug turned his lights on and the rest followed suit.

About day break the flotilla rounded the point at Dauphin Island and began to feel the Gulf swell.

Tim was still at the wheel. Cami offered to take it for a while.

Tim hung around long enough to become satisfied that she knew what she was doing.

Early in the afternoon two days later they docked at Galveston.

The power was on in the city.

The last of the fires were out.

The air smelled clean again there.

Tim's draft against his account with Cotton State Insurance had been deposited to his name at the Galveston bank. The Ship yard was his. The banker gave him a cigar box of keys.

Tim had not had time to look at the two story office building before.

He had gotten a better bargain than he had thought. The building had been built after the last Hurricane had devastated Galveston.

It was built with solid concrete walls two foot thick.

Steel plate shutters were hinged to close over all the windows if another Hurricane came.

Down stairs there were five offices, a waiting room and three toilets. There was a coffee room big enough to be used as a conference room and several office supply closets. There was a concrete walk in safe.

The upstairs was a luxurious two bed room apartment Both bed rooms had large bath rooms.

The living room had a nice kitchen at the head of the stairs.

Every thing was just as it was left the evening before the Black Revolution.

Every thing both upstairs and down was decorated in perfect taste and with fine solid wooden furniture. Where there was carpet it was the best money could buy.

The power was on and the telephones worked.

During the voyage to Galveston Cami had asked Tim for a job. She had told him she could type and do bookkeeping. She had done payrolls for a large General Contractor in Mobile. Tim had not committed. He was uncertain about the future.

During the afternoon of the second day in Galveston a fast deep sea fishing boat tied up to Tim's dock.

An older man came ashore, he wanted to know who was in charge. Someone pointed Tim out.

The man introduced himself as John Ellis and asked if any of that piling equipment could be leased.

Tim told him it could.

The man said that he had let a contract for the building of a ships docks up the way.

The contractor had not even started, all of the material had been delivered to the site though. Tim asked why he was interested in his equipment.

Mr. Ellis told Tim that the contractor and his two sons had been murdered during the rebellion. He told Tim that the equipment of the firm he had contracted the docks to might be tied up for years. There was going to be a long court fight among the relatives.

John Ellis told Tim that the only other contractor doing pilling work around Galveston had nearly all of his equipment destroyed during the riot. His insurance company was not going to pay off for a loss caused by riot or insurrection.

That contractor was going out of business.

He asked Tim to go with him to look at the site and the drawings for the project.

Tim got aboard that expensive fishing toy and he and Mr. Ellis talked as the boat Captain shot up the bay.

The job was simple, just big.

A half mile long wall or bulkhead of interlocking steel pilling was to be driven.

The piling were to be eighty feet long.

Two big I beams were to be welded in place on the water side. One at just above water level, one at the top of the pilling.

Three inch galvanized rods were going to run from those I beams back toward the shore to a massive concrete anchor the length of the wall.

The bay was to be dredged out from the ships channel to against the bulkhead to a thirty five foot depth. The dredged material would be pumped to behind the pilling wall.

When the fill behind the wall was complete, a one foot thick concrete slab was to be poured the half mile length of it and two hundred feet wide.

Tim told Mr. Ellis that he did not have a Dredge. Mr. Ellis patted Tim on his knee and said "Don't worry about that son you might have after this job".

Tim looked the location over. There was a huge stock pile of eighty foot long pilling. The I beams were all there. The 3" anchor rods and re-bars for the anchor had been delivered.

John Ellis had bought the material for the contract and would pay for all of the concrete.

Tim took a set of drawings with him when John Ellis dropped him off at his pier.

Tim had been gone less than two hours.

When he got back all the vehicles had been unloaded from the barges. The plane was in the water tied off to the floating dock they had brought with them. The ramp with hand rails was in place.

Power was hooked up to all the vessels.

Tim took the drawings to his cabin aboard the yacht. Thirty minutes later Cami knocked. Tim shouted " Come In". Cami said that she would have dinner ready in an hour. She said that it was her time to cook and Shelley ( The Doctor's wife ) was going to clean up afterwards.

Cami saw that Tim was figuring a project and using a pencil and paper to do his computations.

She offered to help after supper. She could do the extensions of his figures with a calculator in the office.

Tim agreed.

Cami had done a very good supper.

During their meal the doctor said that now that his car was unloaded he was going to get out and hunt a job and a place for his family to live.

He felt that they were imposing on Tim.

Tim told them to not be in a hurry.

Tim and Cami took those drawings to the office and in two hours had done what without Cami's help would been a half the night job for him.

He and Cami went back aboard ship but it was only a few minutes after nine and Tim was not sleepy yet.

He sat down on a couch on the after deck expecting Cami to go on in to bed. She sat in a deck chair.

They watched the moon rise out of the sea to the east.

Cami said she was feeling down, she had felt the blues all day that day.

Tim told her that he knew that feeling very well.

Cami asked if he minded her sitting close to him for a while. She said that she felt kind of lonely.

Tim told her to come on, he felt lonely too.

Cami slid over against Tim and asked if he could kind of hold her. Just hold her, nothing else.

He put his arm around her shoulder. Cami whispered " Thank You".

They were quiet for a while and suddenly Cami lost it. She began bawling her heart out.

Tim put both arms around her then and Cami tucked her head under his chin. Her tears wet his shirt. After a long while Cami quit crying and just hugged tighter to him. She was sobbing. She tried to talk but couldn't. Then she started crying again, that time she got out a few words. She asked Tim to hug her tighter, try to squeeze the hurt out, make it go away she begged.

Tim was holding her so tight he was afraid he really was hurting her.

After a while Cami's tears stopped again.

She asked Tim to let her go now.

She said " I thank you from the bottom of my heart for putting up with all of that". Cami said that just then was the first time she had cried since before her husband had been killed.

She said that she felt better now and told Tim good night. Tim saw her get a drink of water in the galley and go toward her cabin.

The next day John Ellis came charging up in his fishing speed boat. Tim met him at dockside.

Tim told John that someday that Captain of his was going to be a second late throwing that prop in reverse and would drive his toy up on a dock.

John told Tim he would fire him if he ever did. John said he had taught the boy every thing he knew about boat driving.

Cami had typed a proposal that morning.

She brought it to Tim.

Tim gave it to Mr. Ellis.

John looked at it and frowned.

John said "You want a lot of money for your work don't you son". Tim grinned and said " That's my story and I'm stikin to it".

John said "well I had this contract with that other feller".

Tim grinned and asked John how much that contract had been for.

John said it was for over two hundred thousand more than Tim's proposal.

Tim said "Dam John what are you bitching about".

John said he was not bitching.

Tim told him it sounded as if he was.

John asked if Tim wanted him to kiss him in his ear and whisper sweet nothings in there.

Tim said "Shit no, I would knock hell out of you if you did".

John wanted to know when Tim's crew could get started. Tim told John he would move some equipment up there that day, and should be driving pilling before noon the next day.

They shook hands and John started to leave. Tim said "John I have talked to you only two times and I don't know you very well yet". "Bring a written contract and a bank letter of credit before we start to drive that first pile".

John laughed and said he had been wondering if Tim was fool enough to start work without a contract.

John got in his boat and sped away.

Cami was still there with a grin on her face.

Tim looked at her and asked if she still wanted a job.

Cami said "With all My heart".

Tim asked if she wanted to know how much the job paid.

Cami said that if she got paid enough to buy groceries and pay for some place to live she would be happy. Tim asked her to suppose that he would pay for her groceries and her apartment rent, how much then.