Working alone, I was able to wire the generator into the shed and into the trailer, giving me much needed power. I began working on the elderly crane. I tried to imagine driving it up to the Soliah Home, raising the tower and swinging the five ton wrecking ball. I had wrecked a lot of shit with that old crane, and if it sounds like fun, that’s because it is. Smashing things gets in your blood, especially when you are born into a demolition company.
The more I worked on the crane, the more I understood that it wouldn’t be enough for the job. The Swinger Special had been the best crane in its class, but that had been fifty years ago. A lot had changed over time, but a crane with a wrecking ball was still basically just a crane. The Swinger would have leveled the wooden house in half an hour. The granite walls were going to be a problem. I was going to need dynamite, and a lot of it.
I changed the oil and I cleaned the filters. I then examined every inch of the cable for frays, which looked pretty good. I checked the boom and the rigging for loose nuts and bolts, finding pretty much what I expected. The boom is the long arm of the crane and a bad weld or loose bolts usually spell disaster. The old Swinger fired up in a cloud of blue smoke. I nervously slipped it into gear and the steel tracks churned the bare earth on the floor of my equipment shed. I commandeered the beast out the door and around the yard. It sputtered about the yard and I stopped it on a level patch of dirt and raised the heavy boom. The controls were sluggish, but they loosened up as the machine warmed up. I toyed with the crane for nearly an hour, feeling my skills quickly return after my extended layoff.
Reclaiming the sleeping dozer was a different story. The Whitehead Buster had sat outside in the elements for five years. The Buster described the dozer perfectly. It was a beefy machine with a wide bucket in the front and a massive backhoe in the back that could fill a dump-truck in four scoops. The problem was getting it to start. I worked on it for two days before getting the engine to crank over.
The weather stayed cool and the traffic by my place slowed to a trickle, and then it stopped, altogether. I wondered about this, thinking that it was because of the smell. I had no idea as to what was to come.
They arrived in a pair of black Ford Explorers and a large cargo van. I was never able to get a good count, but they came loaded for bear and I didn’t give them any trouble. They wore uniforms and carried guns, but they were unlike any cops that I had ever seen. They came for my toilet paper and left with just about anything of value that they could carry. A gravel-voiced, block of a man told me that I was supporting my government. He said this while holding a large handgun trained on my chest. Who was I to argue?
The entire operation was over in less than an hour. They loaded my stuff into their van and drove away, but not before warning me how foolish it would be to retaliate. I was numb. They had left me completely destitute. I swore into the darkening sky as I fought to retain my sanity. The generator was gone, along with the fuel. There wasn’t a scrap of food to be found. I went to bed that night feeling as if I had just lost my best friend.
Like magic, which was exactly what they were, my two Medicine Men arrived the next morning.
Chapter Seventeen
Brindle's Odyssey Page 26
