Chapter 28

The next morning, after another ride to IHOP in the limo, Carroll and the girls took me back to the camper and they were off again. I just had time to put Mr Coffee to work before the phone started ringing, and the motherfucker didn't stop all morning. The details were overwhelming me and they didn't let up. I was reduced to asking Randy, John, Marilyn, and Carroll to do the buying for me, with Scotty roped into placing orders, but I had to admit it was more efficient.

I warmed a can of Ranch Style Beans for lunch and kept on going, making list of list to dole out whenever someone called in. I marked down what they reported buying and scratched it off the lists. Often something they said would remind me of something else we could possibly use.

With subtle clues, whoever was furnishing the money let me know what they would be taking care of. When I considered buying five transport loads of cement for the batch plant I suddenly understood that I needn't bother. Same thing with more remesh and rebar, and even a an intended five loads of wall studs changed itself to one load and no worries, just before I told Elton I needed five.

And it just kept going. I was trapped in my camper/office and barely got time to go outside. When Randy made a trip down to the drop lot/parking lot I'd rented, I wanted to go with him so bad I could taste it, but no luck. He and Marilyn went, and damned if he didn't call when he was down there to let me know I needed to order a few trucks of fencing panels, and plenty of electric fence charger, batteries to keep them going for a month or so, electric fence wire, and probably half a truck of insulators.

He was right and I knew it. Marilyn had already done a bang up job buying horses, cows, and even pigs. We would need to put up some serious temporary fencing right off the bat. They even suggested that we buy two single unit mobile homes to live in until we could get the multi-units assembled, and they were right.

But it was the details that kept me in the camper, thousands of them. So many that Milton turned me over to a secretary so he could try to keep the bank operating instead of acting as my paymaster. I considered that one of the best things that happened.

Marilyn turned out to be a real Jewel of an addition too. I hadn't had any idea about it, but Marilyn was a closet bow hunter. When she mentioned getting a few compound bows and some arrows, it hit me hard. The Caddos already knew how to use bows, kinda. I had her try her best to get two thousand compound bows and all the arrows she could get hold of, and she did a bang up job.

I didn't have the slightest idea why the urge to buy them hit me so hard when she named them, but it did. In fact it was even stronger than the urge to buy every type of medicine and equipment that I could get the local vet to order for me. This caused another weird feeling though, even though it was one I was glad of. I could tell that one example of any of that stuff would be enough.

By the time we were only two days from leaving the girls were all worried about me. Hell, I was worried about myself. I knew I was obsessing over whether we had everything we needed but I couldn't seem to stop.

I checked my now mountainous list over and over until I nearly wore the paper out from handling it. I know I'd lost weight but it wasn't that much, I could regain it in no time when we were back where I now considered we belonged. Then all of a sudden it shut off. Whoever or whatever was running the show just switched off the worry.

Carroll insisted we all go to Johnny Cace's Seafood and Steak House in Longview and have a going away party. I actually enjoyed it and I made my best effort to start gaining my weight back with two New York Strips and four lobster tails. The girls had us delivered right back to the camper after the mini-party was over and they put me right to bed. Hell, they'd cut me off a week ago when they started worrying about my health.

The next morning I felt one hell of a lot better and I was happy again when the limo showed up with Randy, Marilyn, John, and Carroll already in it, ready to take us to breakfast.

Afterwards, when we got back to the camper we had some misty-eyed goodbyes with John and Carroll and they left to go back to their normal lives, mostly. Carroll had a job now though.

I left her in charge of my assets and she had an office to furnish and keep up with. She was set up to handle the bank account completely now and I felt sorry to be leaving her the task of paying for everything that was about to go missing.

I'd been a little worried about her having enough money to take care of it, until just yesterday, when JoRita, the secretary at the bank that Milton had moved me to, called and said that we'd received another ten million dollar deposit. It was more than twice what it would take to pay for everything we were going to leave with, even at the brand new price. A lot of the trailers and things weren't even new.

Randy helped me hook the camper to my truck and then I gave he and Marilyn a ride to their house. They would stay until tomorrow to get all our stock loaded and then follow the last truck down the assigned route to make sure nothing happened to cause a delay.

They were staying in their camping trailer now. I'd bought them one so they could go ahead and send everything else down and so they'd have a place to stay until we could get the single-wide homes set up for our temporary residences.

Nancy, Helen, Louise, and I took off for Woodville then and drove straight through, not stopping until we pulled up in the former parking lot that was now a drop yard; a drop yard that was full to near bursting too. The yard mule I'd bought had already been put into service, mostly re-parking trailers.

The first drivers that had dropped hadn't been careful to park the trailers close enough together, and we'd nearly run out of room before the mule was pressed into service. The last trailers to arrive had just been dropped in an open spot to let the mule place them as closely together as possible.

I got out and introduced myself to my security team and then the girls and I headed inside to the cafe. The owner met us at the door.

"Mister, am I glad to see you. I can't believe how many trucks and how much stuff you got out on that parking lot. It looks to me like you're gonna run a little long on the two weeks though," she said.

"Actually, I don't think I will, but why don't we make sure about it," I said.

"I'm not sure I can. The bank is pressuring me to get my note caught up, and I don't think I'm going to be able to. The money you paid me helped out, but it ain't enough, unless you plan on keeping the lot full time," she said.

"Damn a bank, how much is your whole note?" I asked.

"It's nearly thirty-six thousand, and they're gonna accelerate it pretty quick if I don't get it caught up," she said, and damned if it didn't look like she was about to cry.

"Can I borrow your phone a minute?" I asked, and she let me.

I called Carroll, asked her to take care of the note, and then put the woman on to give her the details. The old gal was shocked but she got it done. Her tears were dry by the time she and Carroll hung up, then her face seemed to nearly turn into a question mark.

"Why would you do that for me?" she asked.

"I like to eat here and I want to make sure you're open when I come by. Oh, by the way, I told Carroll to keep the rent paid on the parking lot from now on," I said.

We got away from her then and made it into the cafe. When our eggs, bacon, sausage, and biscuits came I realized that I'd told her the truth. I did like eating here. Of course since the madness was mostly over I liked eating anywhere again. Sure, it was a second breakfast, but what the hell.

After the meal we took a walk out among all our things. The girls were very surprised at what it amounted to. They had realized that we were buying a lot of stuff, but hadn't really made the connection about how much space it would take up. Most of their buying had been with Carroll, and while she'd no doubt told them about everything, they hadn't realized how much space it would occupy since they usually only saw a limo load at a time.