Chapter 21

I hurried toward the equipment shed to get the tractor, but on the way I noticed that the indicator bulb for the incoming hydro was alight. I paused before going any further, then hurried back to the house. Opening the door, I glanced inside at Lisa-Marie and Andy, sitting at the kitchen table.

"Girls, the power is back on, I'm going to try switching it over now. Okay?"

"Wonderful." Andy squealed. "That means I can take a shower in a couple of hours."

"Yeah, and it means the stove will work again, so I can get some of your wonderful cooking." I laughed. "I'll switch it over, but if it goes off again and I'm on the tractor, I won't know about it. You might not want to start baking something like a cake or anything like that."

"Just do it. We can take care of ourselves." Lisa-Marie snorted. "If worst comes to worst, I'll bet we could restart the generator too. Switch it over, then go get Jean and Triple Dub."

"Yes boss." I laughed and closed the door.

I walked over to the power pole, switched the hydro power into the circuit, then shut off the generator. Everything looked okay, so I hurried from there the equipment shed

As the tractor was warming up, I found some heavy rope and a fifty-foot length of light chain. Then after I was on the tractor and heading down the yard, I stopped the tractor, hopped down, went over to the house to check with Lisa-Marie and Andy to be certain that the regular power was still on. I had to duck a flying washcloth and got told to "Get your ass into the seat of that tractor and get Triple Dub out of the snow bank. We told you we're fine, but they need help."

I was laughing and in a good mood as I set out to find the broken down snowmobile, then had to plow my way through two fair sized drifts just to get out of the yard. Once I was out on the road I found that Lisa Marie had been right, the road all the way to the bridge was fairly clear except for one huge drift that must have been close to twenty feet wide and almost three feet high. It started at a clump of willows on the fence line next to our pasture and stretched right across the road, blocking it completely.

As I approached it, I saw that Jean was waiting for me. She'd seen me coming and came to meet me at the drift on her snowmobile to see if I'd brought along a shovel for her and her cousin to use. She took the two shovels and the rope that I'd brought with me, then quickly strapped everything on the machine and drove back to help Triple Dub dig himself out. By the time I'd used the front end loader to scoop my way through the snowdrift and driven the rest of the way to the bridge, they had the machine all ready for me to hook on with the tractor. Since snowmobiles aren't meant to go backward because you could damage the front skis, Triple Dub had me pull the machine forward across the gully. He walked beside it, making sure it was past the bridge before he let the tractor pull it up toward the road.

Once we had it out of the deep snow, we used the rope as a sling then lifted it up with the front end loader. Once it was in the air, we could see that the main drive belt was in bad shape, somehow it had twisted and looked as if it was broken or torn and had partially doubled back on itself. Triple Dub was really upset about it since he wasn't going to be able to fix it easily. On top of that, he'd been wading around in the soft snow for quite a while so he looked wet and quite cold. Altogether, he looked like a really sad traveller with somewhere to go and no way to do it.

Using brute force, we loaded the snowmobile into the front bucket of the tractor, then chained it in place. I suggested that they head for the house on the other machine, but he wanted to ride in the cab of the tractor with me, just in case I had problems. Instead, Jean hurried to the house on her machine, but before she left us, I asked her to have Andy heat some soup and make some sandwiches for lunch. Then she was gone with a wave of her hand.

I had to drive quite slowly so Triple Dub's machine wouldn't bounce too badly as we hit ruts and bumps in the snow and ice-covered road. I tried to talk to him, trying to get to know him a little bit, but he seemed quite taciturn. In only a moment or two I realised that he just didn't seem to want to say anything, so I held back and simply drove the tractor.

When we pulled into the yard, we drove straight to the equipment shed and I slowly lowered the broken machine to the floor, then suggested that we go inside the house to warm up. Triple Dub seemed to think that he'd like to tear into the machine instantly, but I insisted that he needed to warm up first and finally convinced him to come inside with me.

Even before we got to the house, I noticed that two snowmobiles were missing so when we went inside and only Lisa-Marie was there, I wasn't really surprised.

"Where are Jean and Andy gone?" I asked as I hugged Lisa-Marie again.

"Oh, they're off to see Willy. Andy thinks that the snowmobile that Willy wrecked last year is the same make and model as the one Triple Dub has. If it is, he might have the spare parts to get Triple Dub's machine repaired today." Lisa-Marie answered as she snuck in a quick kiss, then slipped away to set some soup plates on the table. "Jean said she'd rather Triple Dub had a machine of his own to ride back to town. She thinks her machine would be too slow with two people on it."

"Umm." Triple Dub grunted, then smiled and nodded.

"Triple Dub, get out of that snow suit and sit down at the table." I told him flatly. "They'll be a few minutes before they get back, so you have time to eat."

"I should start stripping my machine and..." He started to answer in a slow manner.

"Oh nonsense." Lisa-Marie snapped. "You've been fighting that machine in that snow bank for almost an hour. I know those suits are warm, but you need something to eat and drink. After the way you and your Mom have treated Jean and me all week, I insist on at least feeding you, if nothing else, dammit!"

He didn't say anything, just shrugged and grinned sheepishly as he started to pull off his outer gear. That's when I realised that he was as thin as any man I'd ever seen. Although he was more than six feet tall, I doubt if he weighed much more than half as much as I did and I knew I wasn't fat. He was the skinniest man that I've ever seen. In the next while I found out that he was one of the quietest as well.

Of course the way Lisa-Marie began to prattle on, neither he nor I had much chance to get a word in edgewise for the next while. She started by telling me about the trip to town with the cop, then went on to fill me in on the fact that Jean's Mom had simply marched out of the house and hopped into the snowplow when it arrived at their farm. After that she was full of praise for the hospital staff as well as for Triple Dub and his mother for their kindness.

Before he and I were done our soup and sandwich, she'd told me about phoning our folks to let them know that the phone line to the farm was down, but that we were okay. Everyone there was fine, but they had been worried, so they were glad she'd called. Then she went on to talk about calling Fran to let her know all the gossip and Fran had asked how she was doing. Lisa-Marie grinned and winked at me at that point, then proceeded to tell me that Fran had anticipated the recent developments in our lives and actually expected to hear something about it quite soon.

I took that to mean what had happened with Andy and me, but since I'd been warned about Triple Dub, I didn't dare say anything.

Then to my surprise, Lisa-Marie explained that she'd even called my school to talk to them about the classes that I was missing. She said that the instructor that she had spoken to had been very understanding and that he'd made some suggestions about my finishing the year as an away student since I was getting so much hands-on farm experience on our own place.

When I asked about that, she said that the college had some form of correspondence courses that the instructor had spoken about. Since I was in my last year and in the last two months of my studies, I didn't think it made much sense, but agreed that I should talk to someone about it. If I could finish the year and still achieve full accreditation while working at home, it certainly made sense to me.

After we were finished our soup and sandwiches and were relaxing with a cup of coffee, she thanked Triple Dub for his help in buying the snowmobile. He'd managed to get us an employee discount on the price and that was on top of the dealership's 'early spring' price because it was so late in the winter. Our brand-new machine had cost about what a year old used one normally would have, but we had a full warranty in effect on ours.

Triple Dub's only response was to wave away her thanks with one hand, then shrug his shoulders and hold up his coffee cup as if that was payment enough. It was while we were smiling at his reticence that we heard the sound of snowmobiles, several of them. Lisa-Marie hopped to her feet and led us to the door.

Outside the chinook arch had arrived and the sky was rapidly clearing overhead, so it grew brighter even while we looked out the door. Not only had Jean and Andy returned, but Willy was there with a snowmobile as well. Ttied onto an oversized toboggan that he was pulling behind his snowmobile was the wreck of a fourth machine.

"Jeez, Willy, what did you do to that thing?" I stared at the wreck that looked like it had run into a wall at high speed.

"That's what happens when a snowmobile goes off of a thirty-foot cliff and hits nose first onto pavement. I was lucky I bailed out and saved myself." He grumbled. " We dragged the whole thing up here in hopes that Triple Dub might be able to find repairs for his machine, since the girls didn't know what parts he might need."

"Just a drive belt, but how much for the whole thing?" Triple Dub asked flatly.

"You don't need to pay me anything, Dub. Call it a returned favour for hauling it away."

"You sure? All I need's a main drive belt, but there's lotsa good parts there."

"Billy, it's junk to him, he'd have to haul it to the dump and Tom isn't going to want it sitting around here either." Jean interjected.

"Okay, but I owe ya." Triple Dub spun on his heel to get his snowmobile suit.

"His rig is in the machine shed. It'd probably be best if they were both up there." I grinned at Willy. "Give me a minute to get some clothes on."

"Auch, stay warm. I'll haul it up there and help Dub change the belt if that all that's wrong. It'll give me a chance to catch up on all the gossip." Will grinned as if he'd made a huge joke, at least Jean and Andy giggled.

"It's probably best." Andy said as soon as Willy and Triple Dub had driven off with the machine still on the toboggan and we went back inside. "Dub isn't too comfortable with strangers. I'm surprised you got him inside and out of his snow gear."

"Tom just told him to take it off and eat something. I backed him up." Lisa-Marie grinned, starting to perk a new pot of coffee. "From the look on Triple Dub's face, you'd have thought Tom had used a horse whip."

"It wasn't fear. Dub had great respect for Silas." Jean smiled. "Tom sounds like him, looks like him and inherited the farm when Silas died. What else would you expect?"

"Well, not what happened." Lisa-Marie grinned. "I don't think he said five words while he was in the house."

"Oh, that. He doesn't talk much anyway. He never has." Jean laughed softly, then sobered. "However, to change the subject, you three may as well know that you're the subject of a whole bunch of rumours. I heard a whole lot while I was in town."

"We rather expected that, but maybe not quite this soon."

"Well, part of that might be because of Silas too." Andy grinned. "There were a lot of wild rumours about him and several of the single women and widows around here."

"What?" I stared at her.

"Oh come on Tom." Andy laughed. "When you start off by knowing that he was involved with Fran and then you add in the fact that he simply ignored anything untrue that was said about him, he was a rumour magnet. He was single and lived alone. He was reticent about himself. He was a really nice guy that women liked. He was a great listener. In other words he was a natural target for the rumour mongers. Anyone who wanted to make him out to be the local Lothario amongst the older set had a perfect setup."

"Idiots!" I growled.

All three of them burst into laughter.

"What was funny about that?" I demanded.

"Well, it was exactly what Uncle Silas would have said." Lisa Marie howled. "I knew it was coming and I was waiting for it."

"Me too." Jean giggled. "But, Tom, face it, you're an even better target for the rumour mongers."

"Oh sure." I snarled.

"Well, you are." She argued. "Heck, you've made it easy on them. You move in here and act like Silas did. Only on top of that, you move two sexy young women into your house."

"Well, I don't intend to change the way I act or the way I live just because some stupid gossip's tongue wags and jaw flaps." Lisa-Marie snapped.

"Besides, if they knew the truth, it wouldn't help and none of us plan on either admitting or denying anything." Andy grinned. "That probably means that the rumours will grow even bigger and more wild as time goes on."

"So, do you have any advice for me about what I should do?" Jean asked.

"Just look at the rumour monger and laugh. I intend to, if I ever have the rumour thrown at me." I grinned. "It drives 'em crazy."

"Jean, it's our business, no one else's." Lisa Marie smiled knowingly. "I intend to look them in the eye and tell them flat out that they can kindly keep their nose out of my business."

"I might just retaliate." Jean grinned, almost viciously. "I've lived here all my life. That's long enough to know rumours about almost everyone, so I can match them, tit for tat."

"The worst thing we could do would to be to get angry and start making denials. If I were you, I'd look the person in the eye, say I didn't know and that I wasn't about to be rude enough to ask my friends about their business."

Jean looked at me and I could see she was getting upset with herself and what we might be thinking of her.

"Jean, you hinted, but you didn't ask." Lisa-Marie grinned. "You're our friend and if anyone has a right to be curious, you do."

"However, to change the subject again, how is your grandmother?" I asked, hinting that we should leave the subject alone.

"Well, Granny has lost a couple of toes, but the upsetting thing is that she seems to have lost her more recent memories too. The doctors think that she may have had a small stroke. They're going to do some more tests today or tomorrow. But, we can't thank you guys enough for all that you did for her."

"Just remember that she did more than we did. I think it's remarkable that she walked that far in a blinding snow storm. She forced herself pretty hard for an older woman."