Chapter 31

Tuesday, February 29 - Saturday, March 4, 2000

Considering how many years Jason had driven a fork truck out at General, the job was pretty automatic. It took some skill and thinking, of course, so he couldn't let his mind wander, but in idle moments he often thought about things other than work. More and more these days his mind turned to Vicky over the course of the day; things were getting serious indeed and he wasn't sure he minded. Some sort of long-term arrangement seemed more and more likely with every day that passed, but there just hadn't been the right time to sit down and talk about it -- or decide on just exactly what that arrangement would involve and if he was OK with it. Things were all right for right now, and he had the luxury of not having to rush a decision on it.

So it would have been nice to say that he was thinking about Vicky as he drove home that evening, but he wasn't. What he actually had in mind was doing a pattern-welded Damascus sword that he'd been thinking about for a while.

If done correctly, pattern welding produces a beautiful and immensely strong sword. It involved taking two pieces of steel with different strength and flexibility characteristics, then heating them enough so that they'd melt into each other. Then, the single piece of metal would be heated enough to be able to bend the whole thing in the middle, and beat the two hot pieces together with hammers so they'd weld themselves together as they were beaten back to a long flat knife blade shape again. Then it was done again, and again, and again, until the two types of steel were thin layers that used their differences to produce a whole better than the parts. You could see the layers in the steel, and they imparted a strange beauty to it. Sword connoisseurs who knew their blades would pay big for such a Damascus blade, especially one finished to Jason's standards.

The problem was that pattern welding was a heck of a lot of work, and a pain in the butt. It was a little easier with a rolling mill, but that was a machine Jason didn't have, and he preferred to do it in the traditional manner anyway. It took at least four hands, and there were a couple points in the process where an extra pair of hands that knew what they were doing was helpful. Sergeant Morgenstern had taught him how to do it way back when, and they'd produced some beautiful and expensive pieces. Now, Jason was thinking that Kevin was far enough along to be the second pair of hands and Vicky knew enough to be the third, so it might be a good time to introduce him to it. All that work really wasn't necessary -- there was a place in India where you could order pattern-welded blanks done on a rolling mill, and those were what Jason used for most of his stock pattern-welded blades. But at minimum, Kevin should at least have experienced the process. Besides, someone who knew their blades could tell the difference between the machine-rolled Indian stuff and the real handmade thing.

One of the problems was that they were going to have to clear away a couple days when they were doing very little else, and it wasn't always easy to get the three of them free at the same time like that. And if they were going to do it, they'd have to do it fairly soon -- if they tried it in the summer, the forge and the metal would get the back shop ungodly hot, especially considering the amount of sledgehammer work involved. At least in the winter, nature's air conditioner could help out at a time that people had their houses closed up and weren't as likely to complain about the extra racket.

Although Kevin was coming along well with the hot metal forging and machine work, he didn't have Vicky's hand at the detail finishing, but the time was coming when the two of them could equal the one of him. On occasion, Jason had entertained the notion of setting up a small shop out in the industrial part of town and getting a little more commercial about the knife making, a few years up the road when Kevin could be called a journeyman. They might possibly hire a couple more hands to train up. The problem was that it required both Kevin and Vicky leaving Macy Controls.

It had the potential of happening. Vicky had told him the company had recently been bought out, although it stayed in business with the same name and management -- but at least one big contracted job they'd had for years had been transferred to another plant owned by the parent company. No one seemed to know if Macy had been bought up just to get the contracts, but if business slowed down in the future Macy might be the one left out in the cold, along with its workers. But if that happened, it was years up the road and he'd cross the bridge when he came to it. It was a possible option for the future, nothing more.

So it was really the pattern-welded blade and the schedule to make it that Jason had rolling through his mind when he was heading home. He came around the corner, and was surprised to see a familiar sight in the driveway -- but one that hadn't been there for months: Duane's Jeep Wrangler.

He really hadn't been hearing much from Duane for the last several weeks. They'd had a good phone conversation at Christmas, and a couple briefer ones since. He hated the job at McDonalds, it was boring, the management was anal retentive, and the pay sucked. He'd heard considerably less about Charlotte, who he wasn't calling "Chica" anymore. Reading between the lines, Jason figured that the two had discovered that living together was a little less than paradise. If that was the case, maybe it was best they'd discovered it now, rather than too late like had happened with him and Jody.

He hit the garage door opener and drove the Ford into the front garage, noticing as he passed the Jeep that it was loaded with stuff. Maybe, he thought, the Park Service came through with something and he was on his way to some job somewhere.

Curious, he shut off the truck, closed the garage door, grabbed his lunch box, and headed into the house, to have Duane greet him at the back door. "Hi, stranger," he said as he and his son went into a hug. "What brings you to this neck of the woods?"

"Long story," Duane smiled. "Something really incredible has happened, and I'm heading off to a dream job I never considered possible."

"Full time at some good park some place?" Jason asked as he broke the hug and set his lunch box down.

"Well, yeah, but not for the Park Service," Duane grinned. "Rafting again, but the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon."

"That's not exactly the Nantahala," Jason smiled. "How'd this happen?"

"Like I said, long story," his son grinned. "I just got in myself, it'll take a while to tell. Why don't you get out of your work clothes, then we can sit down and have a beer while I tell you."

Jason wasn't really in the mood for a beer, but wasn't going to bypass one with his son, either. "Good idea," he said. "Grab a couple out of the refrigerator, I'll go change."

A few minutes later, he was in one of his comfortable around-the-house kilts, his feet up on the footrest of his favorite recliner. "I take this to mean things are over between you and Charlotte," he observed to get things started.

"Probably," he said. "It's not a done deal, but we'd both have to go out of the way to pick up the pieces, and I'm not sure I want to. But it was this new job that touched it off and I don't think I'm sorry."

"How'd this come about, anyway?"

"You remember Scooter, don't you? Was my lead raftsman down on the Nanty a couple summers?"

"The gal with the cigars?" Jason grinned. "She'd be hard to forget. She was the one who got your tail lit on fire to do the trail, right?"

"That's her," Duane grinned. "Cool lady, I learned a lot from her. What she used to do was raft in the summer and work in the sales shop at NOC in the winter. Back when Chica and I came out of the Smokies last fall, I was looking forward to stopping off at NOC to tell her I'd almost made it, but she wasn't there. Leon told me she'd quit back in the spring, and got a job with some outfit out in Arizona, rafting the Grand Canyon. I thought that was just cool as hell. Rafting the Nanty really isn't all that good a job, and neither is working the sales store, so for her to get to go to the Canyon was a really good deal for her. Back when I was working the Nanty, we all pretty much agreed being a guide in the Grand Canyon was about as good a deal as you could get in rafting, and if anyone ever deserved a shot at the big time it was Scooter. But the Canyon companies don't hire people from outside much, they like to bring people up through the business themselves, so it has a reputation for being damn hard to get into. You have to know someone when one of the companies has an opening."

"You're telling me you knew Scooter when someone had an opening."

"Right, but it didn't come down like that. A couple weeks ago I was working the morning shift when the door opened, and who should come in but Scooter and a couple other girls. One of them was about my size but bigger through the shoulders, and the other one was this cute little blonde teeny-bopper. Well, I said I'd heard she was out in the Canyon and congratulated her. She said she liked it there, it's the most awesome rafting on the planet, and the two girls with her were Grand Canyon boatmen, too. I could believe it of the bigger one, but it was hard to believe the young one had ever even been in a raft. Well, just in passing, I asked if there was a chance I could get on there. She turned to the little blonde and said, 'Michelle, I'm going to keep this honest, you tell him.' I found out later they'd heard through Leon I was available, but Scooter didn't want him to know she'd talked to me. So, instead Michelle told me to call out to Canyon Tours in Flagstaff, ask for Al Buck, and tell him she and Crystal told me to call."

"Being cute, huh?" Jason grinned. "I take that to mean you called."

"Right after I got off shift. I'd gotten no less than five turndowns on park jobs in the past week, and to have something like that come by, I wasn't going to pass it up. Anyway, after thinking about it, I thought I recognized Crystal, and when I called Al he said she'd been through NMU, and that rang a bell. She was finishing up her last semester when I was a freshman so I didn't know her very well, but she used to hang out with Gary and some other guy I never got to know very well, the whitewater chair before Gary."

"Really old home week, huh? So what happened?"

"Well, Al said he was interested when I told him my qualifications and that they'd told me to call, but he wanted to talk to the girls face to face, and unfortunately they were going to be on the road for a while yet. They were on their way back from a vacation in the Bahamas, and he had them looking for a couple rafters on their way back." He let out a sigh, and took a pull at his can of beer. "Well, anyway, a couple weeks went by, and I figured it had pretty much come to nothing. I got another half dozen turndowns from Park Service applications in that time, so I was beginning to figure it was the Nanty for me again next summer. On Friday Al called. The girls had just made it back, and from what he said I guess they told him to grab me while the grabbing was good, so I'm on my way to Arizona."

"So what did Charlotte have to say about it?"

"The truth be told," he said slowly, "She was relieved. It was good on the trail, Dad. We had a ball and really got along. But like I told you when you picked me up at Amicalola, sometimes people aren't the same on the trail as they are off the trail, and I guess that's true with us. I won't say we were fighting or anything, but we were pulling in different directions. It wasn't bad before the holidays, but after New Years she started in on her student teaching; she has all the prep work to do, pretty stressful, and having me around just added to the stress." He was silent for a moment before he continued, "I guess I was looking forward to getting hired somewhere as an excuse for us to take a breather from each other, at least until the term ends. I thought maybe we might be able to regroup a little. I guess she was thinking pretty much the same thing. So, over the weekend we moved her stuff back to her folks' place and packed mine up. I had to go to work yesterday to get my check, but as soon as I got it I was out of there. I slid down to NOC, got a couple things from the store Al said I would need, told Leon what was coming down without mentioning Scooter, and started north. I didn't feel like driving straight through and getting in way early, so I spent the night in a motel."

"So it's over with the two of you, right?"

"Pretty much," he said. "We talked about getting together when the season out there is over, that's early November, but I don't think it's going to happen, and I don't think she thinks so, either. What it comes down to is that we parted friends, and I'm just as happy."