Kate

by Dwight W. Hunter

Chapter22 - Buck Learns a Lesson

  Two weeks passed since Ted and Sam photographed RockPile Estates. During this time Sam put together a high-resolution photos map used to mark off property lines, house construction sites and roads. By using surveyed property corners and employing a Ground Positioning System instrument, a contracted land surveyor quickly located and staked out property marker points, road rights of way and written property meets and bounds corresponding to boundary line maps recorded with the country assessor's office.

  Working with oblique pictures of the terrain, Sam set about designing proposed house elevation outline drawing to determine how the houses would look and blend in with the environment. He sketched out the houses basic outlines and turned the sketches over to architectural illustrators to transform his preliminary work into final full color illustrations.

  While Sam was busy with design activities Rita formed a corporation she named RPE Development (RPE was the initials of RockPile Estates) as the subdivision development entity. She haggled with the county to get subdivision permits, environmental impact statements and processed the usual blizzard of paperwork associated with such a project.

  The building commission required extra paperwork because this was a first time experience dealing with house construction corresponding to those projected by RPE. Bureaucratic foot dragging was eased after Rita explained the significance of this groundbreaking type of residential development.

  The proposed houses would have an absolute minimum of environmental impact, they were energy efficient and natural materials would be used as construction medium. All of these features were calculated to gain national recognition. Anticipated national recognition for the development would also bring special notice to the county building commission for its forward-looking position in assisting to pioneer an environmental and energy friendly development of this magnitude. In addition, the projected selling price of nearly two million dollars per house gave extra leverage from projected tax dollars the county would receive from the development plus additional property taxes would be generated from an anticipated across the board property values increase resulting from an increased demand in new conventional houses as more people learned about Cactus County.

  It was nearing ten A.M. while Rita was out doing early morning errands when her pager beeped and displayed a number she didn't recognize.

  "I wonder who this may be," she thought. "I suppose all sorts of people will soon be calling as word leaks out about RockPile Estates. Oh well I may as well stop and find out who is calling me, one never can tell, it may someone important." Turning her car into a shopping center she located a phone booth and dialed the number.

  "Hello, Buck here," answered her question about who called her.

  "I wondered who did a treasure hunt to find my number. I suspect you have something important on your mind."

  'Thought I'd follow up on the invitation I made for havin' lunch with me today."

  "Sorry about today. I'm committed for lunch with a couple of contractors, followed by a session with the county planning department. Hold a second while I check my calendar. O.K. tomorrow is open."

  My, you sure are mighty busy. I thought a pretty retired lady like you would be takin' life easy. Ya, tomorrow will be fine. Would The Dutchman be all right with you?"

  "I'll meet you there about eleven forty-five."

  "That'll be dandy with me," Buck replied. "See ya there," as he hung up the phone headset Buck thought. "I wonder what she is up to all of a sudden. Never thought women should be mixing in business. She sure is might busy foolin' around with that worthless rock pile. I should be able to find out tomorrow about what she's doin' out there."

  Buck's mind switched over to remembering the night he saw her legs outlined by entry light at the VFW Post shining through her skirt and though aloud. "Damn she has a great body and I'd sure like to get next to it."

  As Rita hung up her phone, she smiled thinking Buck's interest and how easily she deflected his lunch invitation, when she actually didn't have anything important to do. Immediately her mind turned to Buck's probable reason for inviting her to lunch.

  "I know he thinks himself irresistible to women while at the same time believing they are incapable of having an original thought and should such a thought accident occur they wouldn't know how to put it to use.

  I rather doubt he's completely on the prowl although I wager the thought is close to the surface. Best bet is he's wondering about the rock pile. I probably tweaked him enough with the remarks I made at the real estate office to set off his imagination. He did pick a good time to have lunch with enough progress on the project to have something I can dig him about.

  Sam will have a few illustrations ready to copy, so I can casually whip out a few aerial pictures and artworks of a sample house along with a couple of elevations and I can casually mention the planned selling price for a proposed house. When he has a chance to see a sampling of the visual materials and learns the selling price, the combined package should set him scrambling for Mylanta."

  Walking to her car, Rita checked the time noting Nellie would be at the coffee shop. Exiting the shopping center parking lot, she headed to the familiar bowling alley. In a few minutes Rita joined Nellie and was soon telling about her recent call from Buck, including their lunch date for the following day.

  Nellie reported about Buck buying an option from Land Investment Ltd for one hundred thousand dollars and then sold an option to U.S. Resorts for seventy-five thousand. Nellie found it amusing the three parties were now locked in a Mexican standoff for the next eight months. Have you worked out a plan for dealing with Buck when you meet him for lunch tomorrow?

  Rita outlined her plan.

  "Sam and his crew will have some house elevations completed this afternoon making it possible for me to take a few representative thumbnail copies of the property and a couple of house elevations.

  The package should start a couple of minds to spinning. Once construction is well along on the first house, I'll contact Gus about becoming our sales executive. Should he accept, having him working for me will grind Buck even deeper. If Gus decided to come on board I'll feature him in a progress press release as the man to see about being considered for purchasing RockPile Estates properties."

  "I'm beginning believe you must have been trained by the Dominicans to come up with all the different hurts you plan to inflict on dear Old Buck." Nellie chuckled.

  "It sort of came as a surprise to me after getting Buck's call, to actually realize how much enjoyment I'm getting from working on this project, completely aside from giving Buck a crank or two once in awhile.

  If I continue to enjoy working so much, I may decide to come out of retirement and seriously work at developing land. Sam and Julie are having more fun than a barrel of monkeys designing houses and doing land layouts is leading me to think Sam may want to begin a new career.

  They fully enjoyed their trip to Mesa delivering the films and staying on to make the composite photomap. So a good time is being had by all, especially with the amount of time I'm spending with Ted. How about you, Nellie, are you getting any enjoyment out of your project? You have quite a collection of things to juggle and keep straight as we bump along down the road."

  "You know, I'll be glad to get it all over with. There are times when I wonder if it's going to be worth all the effort I'm putting into this sting deal; then I think back and realize what a complete asshole Buck really is and those thoughts get me re-inspired to kick him squarely in the balls with everything I've got. I hope you get a good tail twisting plan worked out to ding him with tomorrow."

  Promptly at eleven forty the following morning Rita guided her car into the parking lot next to the Dutchman. Looking around she spotted a likely looking pickup set off with a cattle brand on its door as belonging to Buck.

  Rita thought to herself,

  "Farmers readily joined the mainstream in their mode of dress; but rancher
s, like Buck, never give up their pointed toed boots, big hats and fancy shirts even when their ranches are sometimes in Florida or the east coast."

  Entering the restaurant she spotted Buck sitting on a waiting-room bench visually examining a short-skirted well-endowed cocktail waitress as she swished between the dining room and bar.

  "Looks like the old cowboy is still up to giving his best shot when it comes to inspecting new breeding stock," Rita thought as she walked across to Buck. He was distracted from watching the waitress by the clicking of her high heels on the tile floor. Watching Rita draw near, Buck stood and extended his hand to her.

  "Good morning, Buck," Rita greeted, shaking his hand. "I see you like being on time. Sometimes being on time can make one lonely; but I noticed you were able to amuse yourself inspecting the indigenous live stock."

  "I agree with you about being on time. Maybe with you being a business lady makes you different than most women I've known who tend to take their time along with a big chunk of mine." Buck nodded to the hostess and they were quickly guided to a quiet table next to a large window featuring an excellent vista of the Dutchman Mountains.

  "Shall I call the cocktail waitress?" The hostess asked.

  Without consulting Rita, Buck answered.

  "No thank you. We'll stay with coffee."

  "How's business treating you these days?" Rita opened the conversation. "I heard a rumor about you having a rather substantial motel deal in the works to put on the town property you are dealing on?"

  "It's still a little too early to tell for sure; although it's lookin' like there's a good possibility the deal will soon come together. Right now we're sort of feelin' each other out a bit. I bought one option and sold another keepin' everything bound up for a few months to give us some thinkin' time."

  The food waitress appeared to take their orders. Rita decided to try a small swordfish fillet with a side of asparagus and white sauce. Buck stuck true to form with a rare lunch steak, red beans and cold slaw.

  "I see you're keeping loyal to the herd," Rita commented.

  "Ya, I guess so. Old habits just come natural and are hard to break when it comes to food. My granddaddy Thorn was one of the first sodbusters in my part of the country. They lived on buffalo meat, spuds and beans until the buffalo were gone and by that time there was enough beef to replace the buffalo, so I guess you can say it's a family tradition."

  "And where was or is this, 'part of the country'?"

  Eastern North Dakota. Near a little cow town called Antelope. Never did find out how the town got the name Antelope, since there were mighty few Antelopes around. In my opinion it should have been called, Buffalo. Counting all the critters that walk, there must be about hundred residents in Antelope.

  The town has only businesses needed to support the ranches and a few country folks who move into town for the winter. It's a hard country in the wintertime; the wind blows a kind of cold able to cut you to the bone. Summers are pretty nice, not much spring or fall. It tends to be a two-season country.

  "In another life, I experienced a few North Dakota winters and can sympathize with you. I worked at Minot Air Base for a few years and like all Air Force related people I was grateful to be someplace else. That's one of the overriding reasons why I spend my winters in the desert."

  Their lunches arrived, slowing their conversation other than for brief comments made about the food.

  "How's the land you purchased out in the rocks and cactus doing?" Buck asked.

  "Great," Rita smiled. "I'm just about to announce the opening of RockPile Estates. All I'm lacking are a few permits needing to be rubber stamped by the county planning commission, which I'm expecting will be done by the middle of next week."

  Her announcement grabbed Buck's attention and wiped a budding smirk off his face, to be quickly replaced by a blank expression. Rita continued.

  "I had the eighty acres divided into sixteen five acre lots. It's set up as a planned development with a basic design concept ensuring each house blends into the natural environment and the lots will not be further sub-divided. Electrical power will come from solar and wind sources so the cost and damage to the land associated with bringing in electrical power has been eliminated.

  With no above ground utilities there is less contamination to the primitive ambiance. Roads will be surfaced using a natural color topping to eliminate any distracting colors. A completed three thousand square foot minimum size house, including land and improvement will sell in the neighborhood of two million dollars each."

  Buck sat in full focused concentration during Rita's capsulated description; when he heard the unit-selling price his jaw dropped and sucked in his breath.

  "Sounds like quite a project," Buck remarked with a monotone mumbling voice.

  "Have you contracted with a developer to manage the job, or are you running the show?"

  "Just me! Rita emphasized. "What's the matter, Buck? Don't you think a woman has the brains to manage anything bigger than a broom?

  "Wa? wa?well," stammered Buck, while trying to get his mind around the unexpected business bomb Rita laid on him.

  "I suppose there's a few women capable of runnin' such a job. I guess you must think I'm one of them male chauvinist or whatever it is men are called these days who thinks the main reason women were put on earth was to cook, wash dishes, and have babies. If you think that way about me, I suspect you're pretty close to bein' right. Like Gus told me the other day I've had too many one-way conversations with cows during my life.

  I've been doin' a lot of thinkin' here of late, along with lookin' at the way people live their lives here in the Junction and I'm havin' to change my way of thinkin'. It ain't easy to change a lifetime of bein' one way and tryin' to become another."

  "Buck! You surprise me. Are you for real about the things you just said or are you pouring my ear full of cow fertilizer?

  "I suspect is must come as a surprise to hear me admit I'm a little on the old fashion side." Buck confessed. "But yes, the thinkin' part is for real. The doin' part is the real sticker and it's goin' to take awhile, probably a long time."

  "I'm forced to be honest with you, Buck. You completely blew me out of the water with the confession you just made. After spending my working career working with, and under the supervision of, a wide assortment of asshole men who sat around holding the same opinion of women you mentioned and most times worse than you just described. I find it very remarkable for someone of your age and background to muster up courage to make such a confession. That's not to say I'm convinced any of your self-inspection inspired changes will ever see the light of day; I must reserve the right to believe any part of it until I can see measurable proof of your action. In the meantime, I commend you for making the effort to verbalize your thoughts to someone you know little or nothing about."

  "Just like Gus said about you, you do have a way of saying a lot with a few words. No I wasn't blowing smoke, I meant everything I said and believe me, it wasn't easy. So what do these environmentally compatible houses look like?"

  "As a matter of fact, I have some elevation illustrations with me. Rita answered, drawing a group of photos from her leather folder and handing them to Buck. He looked through the material slowly and paid each photo close attention. When completed he handed them back to Rita and commented.

  "Well, I'll be. Here it was right in front of me all the time and I didn't have the brains to see it. This is pretty much the same idea my Granddaddy and other early settlers in North Dakota used when they built sod houses and stock pens on the southeast side of hills, away from the wind and catch the sun. Gus and I looked at the same thing you did and saw nothin' but boulders and sage brush. My hat's off to you, Rita. It looks like you're on to somethin' and have sure done one hell of a job kicking us where it hurts the worst on this project.