Chapter 34

Somehow all the girls were out of bed, dressed, and even cooking before I woke the next morning. It was obvious they thought it was oh so funny, but I ignored the teasing, did my bathroom business, and got dressed.

When I passed by Jr's room Louise told me to wake him up. It was then I noticed that Jr's two playmates were in the kitchen laughing at me, and probably Jr, also. What the hell, I didn't care if they had a laugh on me, especially since they were cooking while they laughed.

Jr didn't seem any the worse for the wear of a few extra minutes of sleep either, and by the time he joined me at the table I'd already poured down one cup of coffee and was working on my second.

I didn't doubt I was missing the significance of the day but it just didn't matter to me right now. The girls began serving some type of celebratory meal and whatever the occasion, I was all for it. We were having bacon, sausage, biscuits, grits, and even eggs; the latter being some type of preserved scrambled eggs, of course. I knew that Marilyn's chickens were doing well, but they weren't old enough to start laying yet.

I wondered about the extra food this morning and also about the happier than normal attitude but not too much. I didn't want to spoil anything, at least not before I'd eaten all I could possibly hold.

Jr finally clued me in after breakfast, when the girls wouldn't even let us take care of our sham trash duties.

"They are happy tribe move here. Very happy. You must talk good. Make George move," he said.

"I will," I told him, but knew very well I couldn't fail, since Louise would be doing all the talking. Hell, I could say anything and George would be none the wiser. Louise would straighten it out.

Speaking of George, and Ouida too, here they came. It seemed a little early to me but it didn't matter. George had fishing on his mind and I figured we could provide. But first, we needed some coffee.

Luckily Louise had thought of that already and the giant restaurant grade coffee pot was out on a picnic table. George and his merry band had come prepared too. They were all carrying the insulated mugs we'd given them earlier. I started serving right away.

Helen came out the door carrying something a few minutes later, followed by Nancy, Ginny, and then Louise. They were bringing trays of sweet rolls for our guest. I was going to make sure I got my share too. We ended up spending about half an hour sipping coffee and making the treats disappear.

"How 'bout some fishin' now," Randy said, when things hit a slow spot.

"Fine with me. What about it George, are you ready for some fishing?" I asked him, and even Jr could translate well enough by now to get a grin out of George.

Randy surprised us all then, with his patched together multi-boat trailer. He must have cobbled it up after sundown yesterday. He had the bass boat's trailer attached to his pickup and had welded some short extensions off the back of it to mount two more trailer knobs. Two of the aluminum boats were attached to these.

"Damn, what a rig" I said.

"Well, I wouldn't want to pull it downtown, but it will do for a drive to the river, besides there ain't any towns around here. Hell, I can even hook two more of the small trailers to the big one if I need to," he said.

"Well don't stand around bragging about it, head for the water."

The rest of us walked, except Marilyn. She was actually brave enough to ride with Randy in that contraption. It held up well though, and by the time we reached the river the aluminum boats were in the water and Randy was backing the single trailer in to unload the bass boat.

At least I'd had sense enough to bring a rifle this morning, and I know Randy had been planning to do the same. If we didn't let a bunch of fish get away downstream we probably wouldn't be bothered by any gators, but if we were, I wanted to be ready for them this time.

Sky and his crew went directly to the boats, put on their life vest, and pushed off. They paddled downstream a little and waited.

I urged George and Ouida up near the bank and my girls and Jr came along to. When Randy was in place, he signaled the catch boats, nodded at me, and then cranked the handle, fairly hard and long if you ask me.

Thirty seconds later the fish started floating up and it was all Sky and the guys could do to gather them up. They had one designated paddler in each boat and the two in with him worked the dip nets, at a frantic pace I might add.

George, Ouida, and all the rest that hadn't seen this little trick were stupefied. They just couldn't believe it was happening, or at least they couldn't understand how it could be happening. To them it was clearly magic.

That didn't mean they weren't happy to see the fish and when the boats had done their duty there was plenty of help to move the catch into the big baskets Randy had brought for the purpose. Louise explained to them that we wanted to clean the fish down near the pigpen this time, and everyone seemed fine with it.

Once the capture boats were unloaded, Randy moved up stream a little and cranked again, though not as long this time. I don't know what the cause was, but even more fish came to the top this time, and even one small gator was among them.

For a second I wanted them to catch the stunned gator so I could take it back for a pet, then my senses returned somehow. Gators would never make good pets, no matter how small. Randy told them to just let it float away.

After two more rounds of this I figured we had about seven or eight hundred fish to clean and we decided it was plenty. This was the way to fish though. Hell, getting the boats to the river and back from it took more time than the actual fishing did. Still, it was a lot less bother than stringing a net and waiting and it beat hell out of a trotline. Pole fishing didn't even enter the picture. We weren't fishing for the sport of it, we wanted the food.

After we got back to our place, while Randy was putting the boats away and most of the others were cleaning fish, Louise organized a powwow between George, Ouida, me, and herself. We settled down in the kitchen of our triple and had some more coffee.

There was no way I had any idea about how to say what I needed to say. So I just explained to George that we felt it was dumb for the two bunches of us to live so spread out. I explained the advantages of working together and also the advantages of the tools and equipment we had now. Louise nudged me after I'd gone on long enough, and I stopped to let her translate as in tell it the way it would mean something.

Of course, dumbass redneck that I was, I could barely understand a word of what she was saying. I'd given up learning their language months ago, so I just sat there like a lump and watched facial expressions.

Even I could see that Ouida was convinced already. George looked mostly in favor of what he was hearing also, but it was apparent that he hadn't made up his mind yet. Then Louise finished and after a few minutes George let us know what he thought of it, or at least he let Louise know.

When George wound down, Louise turned to me with a couple of questions from George.

"He think good idea also. He want to know if he still be chief with you. You chief and he chief together. He want to know where he live too."

"Did you tell him we would build him a house out of logs?" I asked her.

"Yes and he like. Want to know where he live until then."

"Hell, if he doesn't want to live in his hut he can live with us. The empty bedroom is nearly as big as ours. I can't run Randy and Marilyn out of their trailer. If he doesn't want to live in our other bedroom I guess we can run the guys out of one of the singles," I said, confused a little because this is something I hadn't considered.

Louise turned back to George and she barely got two sentences out before a wide grin nearly broke George's face, and the one on Ouida wasn't any slouch either. Louise stopped at that and George spit out something that was short and must have been sweet since Louise smiled too.

"George want to live here now, and in big house when we build it. He say he no need separate house," Louise said.

I grinned like a fool myself. The only reason I'd suggested the separate log house was because I hoped to placate George with it. Shit we could build something else with the time we'd save by not building him a cabin. I stuck out my hand to shake.

"Deal?" I asked.

"Deal," George said, and shook my hand, after Louise had explained what deal meant, or at least I thought that's what she told him.

It was all hands outside after that, to make the happy announcement. Jr looked like he was shickled titless about the whole thing and even Randy and Marilyn were grinning, even though I knew they couldn't understand any more of what George was saying than I could.