Chapter 42

At breakfast the next morning it was only blind luck I remembered to ask Rose about the CB radio, but I was tickled with her answer.

"Sigfried brought it up when we were planning the replacement truck and trailers. He'd known exctly what was in your other truck and he asked me if we needed to recreate everything and it led to a discussion.

"He pointed out you'd have no one to communicate with here and I pointed out you would if I took a radio too, and things got away from us afterwards.

"I'll admit all I knew about it at the time was you usally said ten-four on it a lot so he took over getting everything we'd need. He did tell me the range should be significantly increased here since there were no other transmitters.

"I have a radio just like yours for a base station and there's a transistor model for the the skidder too. Sigfried told me the skidder's antenna won't be nearly as efficients, but he said I had a special one for the base.

"It must be special because he sent fifty eighty-pound sacks of Sakrete concrete mix to pour a slab for mounting the antenna. There's also some kind of heavy-duty hinged mount to put into the concrete befoe it hardens. It's to help you pull the tower into place after you have it assembled," Rose said.

"Damn, how tall will it be?" I asked.

"He said it would be free standing and was a hundred and fifty feet tall. Before you ask he said the winch line on the skidder would have no trouble pulling it up after you have it assembled and attached to the base thing he made."

"It must be one hell of a mount if you can raise such a tall tower with it," George said.

"All I know is it better work or I'll give Sigfried a good cussing," Rose said.

"I'm sure if he made it things will work out fine. George and I will go look at it in a few minutes."

We made our escape a little later and found all the stuff for the antenna on a pallet in the garage. It had been covered by a tarp and I hadn't noticed it.

Sigfried had done one hell of a job all right. The tower was in eight foot sections and they all fit inside each other. To assemble it you merely bolted the big end of one section to the small end of the one before it. They were sort of telescoped inside each other and thankfully, once we got it up on the plateau putting it together wasn't as hard as it looked.

Even though we weren't using it any longer we left the windmill generator where it was an dug out a base for the antenna just outside the reach of its blades. Mixing fifty eighty-pound bags of concrete in a wheelbarrow with hoe strokes isn't nearly as easy as it sounds either. Sigfried had also sent more reinforcemtn steel than the law allowed and digging the hole had been a caution.

Pouring was a stone cold bitch too. We had to mix a bag, pour it in the hole and have someone keep what we'd already poured stirred up with long handled shovels while we mixed the next bag so we could pour it in and do it all again. We didn't want the pour to end up seperated out by batches as we went and it would do so on its own if we didn't keep it stirred as best we could.

Placing the reinforcement steel was one more pain in the ass, and the heavy-duty hinged attachment had to be bolted to the reinforcement steel which ran all the way to the bottom of the hole. To me it nearly screamed over engineered from the start, but then again it was a hundred and fifty foot tall freestanding tower and it sure as hell needed something to hold the bottom still where we put it.

Once we had the tower assembled we headed back down for supper, even though it was still an hour or so before sunset. Sigfried's instructions said the concrete would be stable enough after twelve hours, but I wasn't about to take the risk. It would get at least two days before I tried it. There wasn't any hurry anyway as far as I was concerned.

As George and I dragged our tired asses back into the cave when we reached it I saw a sight at the table which made my whole day worthwhile. Kita was sitting there in a chair I hadn't seen before. It was obviously built by someone in our camp, though I didn't have any idea who. It put her to the table at the normal height for eating, but it was extra wide and had a special spot for Chiqa to recline at Kita's side.

The two of them looked so cute I could barely stand it. Chiqa had eyes only for Kita who was slowly feeding her something suspiciously puddingish from a tiny spoon. Both of them were concentrating on the progress of the spoonload into Chiqa's widely open mouth. Adding to the charm, for me especially, was my chair right beside Kita's and Rose signaling me to it with a plate big enough to hold supper for me and Kita. Being no fool I took my place, fed Kita a bite just before she reloaded Chiqa's spoon for another delivery.

"Oh Daddy, it was perfect and Chiqa didn't miss a drop of her's either. Let's do it again," Kita said, and we did.

The fun went on until Chiqa decided she was full and went directly to sleep. Kita held on for another five minutes or so, keeping up appearances I think. Finally I had no more little mouth to feed and I polished off the rest.

"It was an excellent job Jack. Just don't forget the details because it won't be long before we have a fresh crew," Rose said.

"Are you serious?"

"Hell yeh, but I'm not the victim, yet. On the other hand we're pretty sure Catla and Shayta are both just a little bit pregnant. I don't know how you short-changed Nanita along the way, but Keeta is showing some real signs too. You have been a busy boy while you were here without adult supervision," Rose said, and she was giving me the widest smile I'd ever seen on her face.

"But when will it happen?"

"Dufus, your part has already happened, but we won't get to see any of your work until spring at the earliest.We're counting on you to have more buns in the ovens before then too."

"You know me dearest, I'm aleays ready to do my part."

"Ain't you just? Anyway we've talked it over and we decided we'll keep you for now - if you keep up the good work.

"Which reminds me, there are a couple more of the one container spots you haven't checked. They're from before you signed on, but there were some good inventories and most are marked as package never opened on the list of details Sigfried left me."

"I'll admit I can't understand why some dumbass would wait around for hours without even trying to get to a weapon," I said.