As promised here is the beginning on of my novel, Foreign Body Reaction. This is the way it will work. I'll put the new work for the chapter at least each Monday morning. I'll create Adobe acrobat files (pdf's) for you to download to have the complete book as we proceed. I'll have links permanently displayed for each of the pdfs as I create them.
As I post the work here, and feel free to comment if you like. Each scene posted here is a first or second draft and open to change until I add it to the Acrobat file. I have plotted the novel through to the end, but the variations, interactions, character development and conflicts are uncertain until the written work makes them concrete. If you have suggestions after reading this use the comment section and tell us what you think. Without further ado, the curtain rises on "Foreign Body Reaction" a novel by Alan McNeill.
Foreign Body Reaction, Alan McNeill Chapter 1
Big for bears and small for cats. Shit! Was it big for cats and small for bears? Ben's forehead was beaded with perspiration despite the cool November air. The mountain lion watched impassively, waiting for his decision. She stood a few yards away, higher on the log jam, turned sideways looking at him over her shoulder. Ben was below her, frozen in mid step. He had been picking his way up through the log tangle when her eyes froze him in mid step.
Big for cats, yeah, big for cats, he thought. Slowly he stood to his full six foot two inch height and in the same motion brought his hands to the back of his wind breaker and pulled it up above his head. The cat continued to stare, unimpressed. Only the big cat's tail betrayed any tension, flicking back and forth. Ben thought he could sense a slight coiling of her body. God, she is huge!. He began rock back from foot to foot stiffly, to accent his “big man” impression. He tried to yell only a small dry squawk came out. His rocking did disturb the twisted mass of roots and limbs under his feed and he found his right leg plunging through the log jam. He was brought up sharply against his groin and his breath exploded in a painful gasp..
He struggled to free himself. He could feel the breath of the mountain lion on the back of his neck and with a super human painful effort he launched himself straight up from the tangle. He landed crouched searching for the lion. The only sound was his ragged gasping breath.
She was gone. The damp green forest was once again still, as serene and empty as it had been before he had come face to face with the mountain lion. Ben began to shiver violently. He descended the jam and retraced his path through the fir and hemlock forest, walking carefully backwards the whole way.
His feet felt the deer trail that led back up to the pipe row. His heart still thudded in his chest, and his muscles felt wired tight. Its the adrenaline, thought Ben. But knowing and feeling are two different things.
Ben had glimpsed a smaller cat and followed it up the creek bed hoping to get a picture for his website. He should have had the thought that it might be last year's cub and still with momma. While mountain lions are not really uncommon in Oregon, they are rarely seen. They are shy cats, the largest of the North American cats. Ben realized he had almost made a permanent error. Mountain lions can easily crush the skull of a human in their jaws, and sometimes do. If she interpreted Ben's photo quest for the baby as Ben hunting her cub she would not have hesitated to kill him. Thank you, thank you, thank you mothers everywhere, thought Ben.
A shrill squawk sounded behind him and Ben jumped, his head swiveling left and right rapidly. He smiled sheepishly to himself as he realized it was his cell phone, an incoming text message. He reached to the web pocket on his tool belt and silenced the phone.
He was working his way up back up out of the canyon when the cell phone rang again. This time the tone indicated a voice call. Jacob is being persistent, he thought.
“Hi Jacob.”
“Ben! What happened to you – you dropped off our scheduled plot path about about twenty minutes ago?”
Ben was aware that all linewalkers had to have their cell phones on at all times while walking row. They were continuously monitored and their positions mapped via cell towers using the GPS chip in the phone, and failing to find a close cell tower, the company tracked the phone by satellite.
“I saw a small cat and took a detour to try and get a couple of shots. I was in a canyon. I guess I lost cell contact.”
“Jesus Ben, you trying to get us in trouble? You know your route is mapped as you go! You're supposed to stay on the pipeline for christsakes. Especially today!”
“Just mark that holiday as a as call of nature. A guy has got to pee right?” Having survived the the mountain lion encounter Ben felt almost euphoric. Jacob was both his friend of two decades and his current dispatcher on this job. In fact, Jacob had gotten Ben into the company as a contract linewalker following Ben's divorce. After couple years of depression and part time jobs Ben had been on the ropes financially. Jacob had given Ben the perfect job, a chance to enjoy the solitude and peace of the forest and desert while getting paid. His current passion was his website, blog and the photography that grew out of that.
Jacob's voice intruded again, “you've got a difficult section ahead of you.”
“All the sections are difficult in this drizzle.” Ben loved the soft green curtain of mist and foliage that draped the rugged folded hills of southwest Oregon. They made beautiful images that provided a soft focus for any subject that caught his camera. However the reality of being in it day after day on foot following the path of the new Pacific Connector gas line was not as much artistic as it was wet, cold. Even though it rarely got below freezing here, the constant cold stole his body heat and sometimes he returned at the end of a pipe section chilled to the bone.
“Wimp,”
“Don't ride my ass. I might be a sissy about the wet and cold, but your only real decision sitting in that Prevost, is FM, CD, or DVD. You would die out here in a day.”
“Your choice man, I'm smart enough to not have to be out there. I could have gotten you a seat somewhere inside, but no, you don't play well with others, need to have the big spaces. You said . . . “
“Yea, yeah. My choice,” Ben said, cutting Jacob off. “What's up? I got a text message that I haven't looked at yet. Where's the fire?”
“The section your walking now is going to get narrow and steep. Did you see that on your GPS?”
“Yea, I mapped it out this morning at the trailer and printed off the whole three miles. What's the big deal, it looks normal enough, a rise about one thousand feet and a cross at the saddle between to the two hills. Very steep side on the south of the west hill. Beautiful country, but what is the company's concern?”
“On the larger display here it is marked as a hazardous area. I just received a second message via the satellite from the company to remind you that the saddle will be “walked” by helicopter and that you should are instructed to continue north around the peak and then pick up the pipe row on the descent side as marked. Do you see that?”
“I would have gone that way anyway. What's the deal about this section? It seems we have seen a lot worse than this,” Ben said. He loved and hated the mountains of southwest Oregon. Formed by the same plate tectonics, the collision that formed the Cascade mountains to the north and east, these mountains formed the rugged border along the Pacific Coast between Oregon and California. However a fold running east and west confused the this entire section of the state. Mountains had been folded, raised and dropped so many times that there was no natural orientation.
Getting disoriented was a definite possibility in these mountains. The rugged wilderness that the Pacific Connector passed through was exhilarating and beautiful, but it required a linewalker to be cautious, in good physical condition, and to have adequete gear to survive most mishaps. Of course if Ben would stick to the pipeline it would be pretty hard to get lost.
“Maybe they just decided to care more about you today? Listen Ben, they are serious. This is not to place to chase off after Bambi or Thumper. Just inspect the section and text me back when you're on the line after the hill. I'd love to talk more but I have to get back to it, you now, back to being warm and dry.”
“Fuck you muchly, asshole.”
“You're welcome.”
“Oh, last thing Ben, somebody back in Eugene at the office seems very concerned for your safety today? What's her name? You been dipping into the administrative assistant pool?”
“Jacob, you know I'm loyal to , ah, what's her name.”
“And why none of us can ever figure out Ben. She must have some incredibly redeeming skills.”
“Later Jacob.” Ben flipped the phone shut and put it back in the phone holster on his web belt. The friendship between the two men allowed great latitude, but the dig at Ben's current girlfriend, Ann-Brooke, still managed to piss him off a bit.
He had reached the narrow pipeline row while talking to Jacob and had turned west towards the mountains in question. He studied the map he had printed out this morning, and looked up to see the rise ahead. Pipeline rows are much narrower than he expected when he first started. The new technology buried along with the pipe line made one hundred foot easements unnecessary most of the way. In fact, in some places the row would grow back to be just wider than the pipe. In this section the row was about forty feet wide. Ben continued on. Ahead, the knife edge cut of the row rose steeply towards the saddle between two peaks. The mountain was really a pair of hills with a saddle between. The saddle was the line of least resistance apparently and that is where the Pacific Connector had been run.
The Connector ran from Scott's Ferry on the Oregon coast at North Bend to Malin, Oregon, south of Klamath Falls on the California border. This pipeline was critical, it was the great natural gas hope for supplying natural gas to California's central valley agricultural machine. Now that energy was well past peak, both oil and gas, prices had been shooting up since 2007. Now in 2011, the Liquid Natural Gas docking and offload facility was done and gas was flowing, off loaded from the giant LNG gas ships.
The pipeline construction and even the LNG gas facility had faced little opposition in the House or Senate. Even the eco-everything groups had gotten behind it reluctantly, albeit adding the demand for nearly constant inspections. Ben appreciated that because the inspection demands increased the need for pipeline walkers. Planes and electronic sensors had largely replaced the expensive task of walking the pipeline, but they couldn't do the detailed inspections mandated by Congress, and now there weren't enough people trained and willing to do it. California needed the natural gas to make fertilizer, American needed the food basket of California to produce.
So now giant tankers with enormous white spheres of compressed LNG were a common site in Coos Bay where their massive size dwarfed the small town of North Bend. They unloaded at Scott's Ferry on the north side of the river, directly across from the town. The cargo and the sailors had rejuvenated the stagnant economy of the southern Oregon coast.
Ben looked at the mandated route to the north on his map, seeing that the detour added several miles to the day's work. While it was certainly the easy way around but now Ben felt in a hurry to get done for the day. The run in with the big cat and left him tired.
Whatever the reason, Ben shrugged, reached back and pulled his cell phone from the holster. Just a flick and a slide, and the cell battery fell into his hand. He knew the cell phone contained a GPS chip that allowed the company to track him. He would leave this route diversion off their maps.
Ben lengthened his stride. He checked the GPS and his compass and left the pipeline row, south, not north, in direct violation of the company wishes.
The loose gravel rolled out from under Ben's feet as he sought purchase. It was river run gravel that had formed the bank of a river sometime in the distant past. As the land was pushed up over thousands of years it was eventually folded vertically and eroded to be exposed on the side of the hill. Ben loved the quiet and the geology that his job allowed him to experience. The pipeline itself crossed to the north of this peak, and Ben would rejoin it on the north side of this mountain.
For every step forward Ben slid down a few inches, giving him a sideways running slide down at about half the speed across. Ben tried to check the speed and maintain some control. It was exhilarating!
He made the far side of the steep break lower on the slope than he would have liked but he did get stopped after a few running steps, delighting in the sliding dash across the mountain. Apparently this was the danger that the office was concerned about. Their concerns were often misplaced or made no sense at all.
Ben began the slight descent around to the right, the north, which would bring him back to the pipeline and his real job, which was looking for leaks, corrosion, erosion in the row, and in the last few years, theft. With the price of oil just pushing past the two hundred US dollars per barrel, Ben could understand why natural gas and liquid fuels presented irresistible targets for thieves. In poor countries people would smash the pipes with sledges and scoop the liquid fuels into buckets. Or, they would drill gas lines almost through, then break out the last piece with a rubber mallet and tap the pressurized gas into huge inflatable plastic bags. Of course many of those people smoked due to the effective sales techniques of the major US tobacco firms, so of course people blew themselves up with some regularity in Africa and in southeast Asia; not so in North America.
Spark-less drill bits, self sealing taps, spigots and high pressure hoses made a gas or liquid fuel station out of any pipeline that was accessible. Ben had found three small tap-ins last year, though not on the Pacific connector. The gas line was so new, finished just this year, that so far there hadn't been any attempts to pilfer. The connector did cross many fragile areas bordering a wilderness area to the south, so contracts to the pipeline inspection bids were offered even before it was complete. This was Ben's first time working this section, about thirty miles out from the pipeline's start at Coos Bay in Oregon. Out here Ben could put aside all the noise of the city, his relationship, and the frantic giant gerbil wheel that made up “normal life.”
The morning air was cool and moist, though the fog had dissipated now, and the sun was breaking through. The clearing skies meant cold temperatures tonight, but the shafts of sunlight that finally pierced the mist seemed like light's in a cosmic theater that lit the forest with spot light intensity. No where else in the world did the green of forest so overwhelm his senses. Even in November Ben loved the mountains of western Oregon.
As he walked he tried to let his thoughts slow, stop. Putting words to the complete picture in front of him would make it smaller, it would be reduced from what it was to what words mike draw it in his mind. Ben just let the scene, the smell, the feel of the soft earth settling at each footfall, all of it, just let it flow in. The rhythm of his stride, the feeling of the pattern extending out from him up and down the mountain was enough. How do people stand to work in cubicles and go home to see the world through their TV? thought Ben. Immediately he chastised himself and let that thought go to. He was blessed to be here.
A few more strides and a break in the pattern caught his eye, perhaps a bit of fresh turned dirt, or a fallen tree there, and of course he was constantly aware that this morning's cougar could easily be this afternoon's cougar. He diverted slightly. What the hell, the phone's not tracking me anyway he thought He reached the red slash in the forest floor just a few moments later. The slope was less here, he was two thirds of the way around the small hill at this point. The slash had loose grass and forest debris scattered over it and be squatting his lanky frame down to grass level Ben could see the faint outline of the scar repeating on a straight line due west. There are no straight lines in nature, but these hills had been longed several times in the past, and perhaps this was the remnant of a skidder trail, used to pull the logs out to landings for trimming and loading. The problem was that the disturbed earth was fresh. Ben picked up the soil and let it dribble out through his fingers. He could see heavy equipment cleat marks that had been brushed to near invisibility.
The marks crossed his line of sight multiple times, at right angles to the disturbance. He stood, dusted his hands and followed the disturbed grass a few hundred yards west. The actual cut wandered through the forest up to fifty feet divergent from true west, but it always came back to west. no line been have ever seen cut through the forest meandered. Distinctly odd.
Ben suddenly stood and jogged back along the disturbed line, his Red Wing boots added their own marks to the soft disturbed earth. Reaching reaching the point where he first found the marks, Ben took a GPS reading and noted the disturbance in his log book. He was tempted to put the battery back in the cell phone and text message Jacob with his find. But there was one more thing he wanted to check first.
Ben began to work from this intersection point due east. The marks only went about ten yards before disappearing.
“Barone Row Management.”
“Hello Jacob, how are you?” said a sweet female voice.
Jacob clenched the self phone tightly and spun in the captain's chair to face the front of the coach. “Oh, yes, fine thanks.”
“You sound a bit nervous Jacob. I hope you don't have any bad news for us?”
“No, everything is fine, no problems.”
“Jacob, the voice purred. Remember, we're all on the same side here, we're all trying to keep the lights on, right?”
“Yea, really, everything is great.”
“Has been completed the section we talked about?”
“Who's that?” Emily said, coming in from the bedroom of the Prevost motorcoach. “Is anything wrong?” Emily disliked Jacob's job and the time he spent on it.
“No honey, everything's going great” said Jacob covering the flip phone's receiver.
“No honey,” said the female voice coldly.
“No not you, I mean I'm talking to my wife, no, I mean yes, everything is fine and handled.”
There was a long pause. “Are you there?” said Jacob.
“Has Benjamin Cooper finished the section and reported in.”
“Not yet, but I'm this isn't unusual, I mean he's really dependable.” Jacob's hand hated these little cell phones. When his hands were moist it was hard to hold onto.
After another long moment the voice said, “Jacob, Jacob, perhaps we have given you too much responsibility, too much of our need?” Her voice rose in a question.
Now Jacob was openly sweating. Emily had sat down in the copilot chair and sat expectantly on the edge of the seat. Her foot drummed her impatience on the new carpet.
“Look, I've given you anything you asked for, haven't I?”
“Well, Jacob, now that you mention it I think we need to have a complete copy of Benjamin's job application, employement record, you, know, everything.”
“I can't do that” said Jacob explosively! That's private information that is only available to the company in Eugene. You'd have.. “
The voice cut him off cold. “Jacob, you know we have every right to those. You know who we are right? I mean you knew that when I got you the FEMA trailers from Katrina, you knew whn I made it possible for you to own that very nice million dollar coach. You know who I am, right?
Jacob was silent.
“Jacob, you are a patriot. We are patriots. It is only the good work of people like you and me and other concerned citizens that has kept America burning through the last for years of the crash. Now say it Jacob, what do we do?”
Jacob stared at Emily who mouth was downturned in contempt. So very quietly, so very very quietly Emily could just here him say, “we keep the lights on.”
“You need to email me as soon as he is done Jacob.”
“ I will, I will,” said Jacob, anxious to be off the phone.
“Oh, Jacob, fax me that information in the next few minutes, about Ben. And if you know of any problems he might have had that aren't in the report, you'll include those too. Okay?”
Jacob straightened himself in the chair, “Yes, yes I will, right now.”
“That's a good boy, I knew we could count on you.. Oh, and one last thing dear, if there is a real problem, we'll take care of it right? America counts on you Jacob. There are people watching you, people who tell me that you have a bigger future than a contractor for linewalkers.”
“There are, I mean they do?”
“You bet, takes special men to know that their country needs them, needs their special help, especially now.” The line went dead. Jacob sat holding the phone in his hand. These were difficult times to walk the line now that the economy had fallen apart. But Lady P was right, Jacob was part of building the bridges of hard work that would keep America in one piece. If that meant fudging a bit, what the harm? He helped them and they helped him.
We're all on the same side, thought Jacob. Ben would do the exact same thing in my position.
--
Ben stared at the cell phone in his left hand. He was about to push the battery into place, but he hesitated. He needed a moment to think. He completed the action, and heard the phone chirp awake, seeking signal. A moment later the cell phone rang.
“Ben?”
“Thank god!” said Jacob explosively. “Where have you been? Are you all right? Jesus, do you know how long you've been out of contact?”
“Hey Jacob, you're not going to believe this. Calm down. I'm fine.”
Ben squatted. He had made returned to the pipeline without incident. But he had taken a slight detour, a detour west down that disturbed track he had discovered, and now to confirm his suspicions he needed to backtrack on the pipeline, right up to the saddle between the two peaks. Ben knew that his map had that area marked as “inspect by air.” It was none of his business.
“You're fine Ben? Well that's great, but while you were out of contact I had the the company wanting to know what my crew is doing. Of course I'm one of their biggest contractors so they know I know exactly what my linewalkers are doing. But you and I know that you do exactly what you want and sometimes you push our friendship far Ben.” said Jacob in exasperation.
“Why can't you help me make it easy for you? Shit.” Jacob finally ran down, but Ben could hear that there was much more that was not being said.
“Jacob, honestly, what the fuck is so special about this section? I always get the job done and I do the mileage. More mileage than most of the rest of your inspectors? Don't I”
“You know this row is special. You know that and you know why. People are watching this and you are choosing now to wander away and play Ben the nature boy.”
“Corporate from Eugene Jacob, or others?” Ben held his breath and listened closely. He had been feeling Jacob's stress this week. It was shortly after they he had moved his old Katrina, a 2006 FEMA reject trailer, never used but condemned for formaldehyde problems, to his current location on the pipeline that Jacob had started acting more nervous than usual.
Jacob had moved his Prevost to a good satellite position with good cell coverage, from where he could communicate with all the inspectors working the line.
“Yea, Corporate, yea, of course, who else?” Jacob sounded defensive to Ben.
“I don't know? Homeland Security maybe?”
“What are you talking about? What homeland security? I'm talking my my paycheck, those people” said Jacob without much conviction.
Ben heard all he needed. Now he needed to extricate himself from this and find out for himself.
“OK Jacob, I'm sorry. I got involved with tracking that mother cougar again. You know what that shot would me to my website. I just went wide to the east, as we mapped but I thought I saw the cub and spent an hour off line. But I'm back on track and I'll take a break here and then work the last mile and half. I'm going to link up to The logging access road just west and should be back in the trailer in 90 minutes.
“I'll text the report to you on the lead in mile now.”
“We need to talk as tomorrow Ben, first thing in the morning. You have my site on your GPS right?”
“I'll see you tomorrow Jacob, put the coffee on.”
Ben uploaded the inspection report on the first pipe section that he had walked in the morning and flipped the cell phone closed.
He unhooked his work belt and dropped it to the ground. It held his baby survival kit in an altoids can, his cell phone, flip knife, and holster for his Smith and Wesson 9 mm pistol. The belt itself was 8 strands of parachute cord that could be unsecured from the D rings and clasp to make a serious length of rope. Numerous other pockets ringed the rest of the belt holding test equipment and batteries.
The belt was quite heavy but if he was stranded or hurt it contained most everything necessary for him to survive for at least 72 hours. However right now he could not afford the weight.
His concern was speed. He shrugged off his rain jacket and put it in the pile with the belt and phone. He turned south east and jogged up the hill exactly into the prohibited area.
While he trotted he thought about what he had found on forbidden west route around the mountain. Ben had understood when they took this job that there was something very special about this pipeline and they soon found out what, but not until Jacob had endured a background check of everyone of the walkers that would be allowed to work here. The reason was sound. This natural gas pipeline row was critical to California's central valley agriculture. Since 2007 when peak oil seeped slowly, finally, into the American consumers consciousness, only because it was driven there by prices that finally impacted average Joe's daily existence, energy, especially the liquid fuels, gas, jet fuel, diesel, and natural gas had become the new standard money in the world. The US dollar, nicknamed the petro-dollar had become simply the petro itself, and no longer was the dollar the preferred currency.
Now here in 2011 the dollar had plummeted to less than one third of it's value in 2007, and it was no longer the reserve currency of the world. Thus 2011 found the world in a financial depression and fuels crisis that had been scene by many from as early as the 1940's. Despite that early understanding, despite the fact that you can't just take oil out of the ground and pretend it is still there forever, despite all that, it amazed Ben that people where shocked when gas prices rocked past ten dollars per gallon, homes had to shift away from oil for heating, and found nothing to replace it except wood.
Ben had been writing and reading about the peak oil problem for years and it had been rather anticlimactic so far. No raging starving hordes had left the city centers to pillage and loot, but everywhere the easy life was becoming a thing of the past. People were doing with less and less every day. Financial markets had reacted finally to the loss of cheap energy as it struck every business. All businesses have energy as a cost of doing business. Raising energy costs double made many, most businesses that were profitable in the past, unprofitable. Those that were publically traded on stock exchanges experienced catastrophic collapse in share price which destroyed the companies themselves. Wave after wave of economic destruction changed America in four short years after 2007.
But not everyone wanted to do with less, and this pipeline was an invitation to theft of the most desired thing, fuel. It is hard to steal natural gas, but not impossible, so there was security, more than pre collapse, but not as much as on liquid fuel pipelines.
The secret of this line, the Pacific Connector, was that it was actually two lines, buried side by side, one gas, one liquid fuels, with a huge push priority for gasoline and diesel fuels.
Personally Ben didn't really think the government could keep a secret like that for long. Too many people in the construction or upkeep. But the Feds seemed to think they could and would. No wonder Jacob was acting squirrelly, thought Ben. He was sure that homeland security was all over Jacob.
While natural gas is easy to tap, it is hard to store and therefore hard to steal. You have to compress it and even then it not easy nor small. But liquid fuels, well, all you need is a drill, tap and hose. So now in 2011, this gas fuel line was a national security issue, and its pipeline twin carrying liquid gold, gasoline and diesel was top secret.
Ben's pipeline map had it's own security clearance and every single turn, connection, valve or connector was carefully noted, exactly. Given all that, what Ben had found today was unusual, even more so for a pipeline of such importance.
Ben started to strain a bit on the jog as the steepness increased. He prided himself on being in shape for a 46 year old man. He weighed 200 even and was six foot one. There had been a time when he was much heavier, but there's nothing like a catastrophic relationship blowup to help loose weight. Then this job was miles of walking everyday. He had found that he liked his new look. In town women had begun to notice him, but he was in a relationship with Ann Brook so he was careful to remain out of trouble.
Soon Ben reached the top for the saddle. He kept his GPS in his hand and had been watching it and the map notation he had made. Soon he came to a thankful stop, and caught his breath, bent over a bit, his hand on his knees.
He double checked the GPS display. This spot, accurate to within seventeen feet the GPS said was exactly due east of his intersection mark which showed the disturbed soil on the other side of the peak.
To Ben's disappointment, nothing seemed any different in this spot. He slowly walked to the edge of the row cut and watched the soil and grass cover that rose up the mountain. He walked carefully along without seeing anything note. Ben knew that the pair of pipelines lay about six feet below his feet.
As he walked he picked handfuls of loose soil up feeling for some change. Again nothing. Changing his approach, Ben walked a hundreds yards south of his GPS mark and began working back towards his original reading. Grass had sprouted thickly on the flanks of the two hills here. He was essentially out of the tree line here, but he had never seen the grass so thick on a new powerline before.
Ben knew that grass was planted to control erosion any time the pipeline construction disturbed soil. The usual method to seed the barren ground was to spray seed balls of fertilizers, clay, compost and grass seed. The little balls thwarted the birds a bit and gave the the seeds a head start when the rain came.
Then Ben saw a small difference. About twenty yards south of his GPS mark the grass looked different. It laid differently, the blades laying in a different direction, possibly planted at a different time. Ben got down on his hands and knees, and felt the grass there. It was not newly rooted grass seed, it was a a more mature mat of grass.
Sod, thought Ben in wonder. He tried grabbing a handful of of the grass and lifting. The entire piece easily pulled up, exposing bare soil underneath. Only it wasn't the bare thin mountain scree, it was three quarter minus gravel back filled and shaped to match the slope of the embankment. Ben took a GPS reading and created another waypoint on the GPS. The sod continued off the hill on the west side and completely over both pipelines. There had been major construction here. Ben suspicions were confirmed. He tucked the GPS into his pocket, put the map away and began an easy jog back to his tools and phone.
#
Ben found found his trailer and truck just as daylight faded. November in Oregon is a time of late morning, little light and too early dark. It felt great to get back into the warmth of the trailer. Ben stripped off his coat and damp clothes and quickly toweled off while the catalytic propane heater brought the inside temperature up quickly up to the comfort zone.
Because work on this section of the pipeline would last at least a week, Ben preferred not to use his trailer's toilet. The black water tank in this FEMA reject trailer only held twenty gallons, and driving the trailer to town to dump the tanks was time consuming and expensive. When he had first arrived on the old logging landing where his trailer sat, he had dug a small pit privy just a dozen yards away through the brush.
Ben pulled on his heavy construction jeans, a clean socks, and dashed out bare chested to the privy.
The air was cooling off quickly now that the light was gone, and the entire area around the truck and trailer was wreathed in fog and mist. At least it wouldn't get too cold tonight. Ben could sleep without his heater being on all night as he preferred. He used his sleeping bag as a quilt on the queen sized bed, and he preferred to have the trailer cool.
The truck was unhooked from the trailer, the trailer tongue resting on the screw lift and a couple of floor jacks. Ben circled the truck to avoid the extension cord that connected the truck to the trailer. He had a small Honda generator inside the canopy as a backup to the solar if needed.
Ben had installed solar panels on the truck and had added solar panels to the flat trailer top a few weeks ago when the company was working in Arizona, but here in Oregon in the winter, well, solar didn't cut it at all. Ben used the generator as little as possible as the quiet that he sought out here was ruined by any noise.
The air was cold on his bare chest. He wanted to pee and get back to the warm trailer as quickly as possible. The thick sizzling stream of urine raised a cloud of steam as it struck the pit. Ben used those few moments to allow the immense quiet of the forest to settle him, soothe him. The quiet pressed up close to him, this was his mediation, his time to feel the world. Tonight the mist absorbed all sound, all light. He felt cocooned and safe.
The lights of the trailer pulsed brighter and Ben turned to look directly at it. The windows light brightly, swelled, bulged, and flew outward. A thunderous tearing sound ripped the night and drove him backwards onto his back. A fire ball blossomed out and then up, billowing high into the night sky!
Ben lay stunned on the ground, fighting to catch his breath. His brain understood that his trailer had just exploded. Impossible, Ben couldn't take it in, he just lay on the cold wet brush and watched the fire burn trying to catch his breath.
Sound returned and Ben realized he had been deaf for a few moments. He tried to leap to his feet and fell twice before stumbling towards the truck. The rear of the truck, at the canopy door was smoking, but the glass was intact. Ben pulled open the driver's door, got the key from under the mat, an drove forward as far from the burning inferno as possible. Ben was sure that the propane tanks must have blown up. There were two and he couldn't tell if both had blown, but he wanted to get his only transport out danger before it became part of the fireball.
Ben slumped forward and breathing heavily, Everything he owned was in the trailer. Identification, insurance policies and twenty thousand in twenties and fifties. Ben let his head fall against his steering wheel. He hated this, he hated mistakes, especially his own. He couldn't think of anything he had left unfinished or lit that could possibly have caused this. He planned well for everything. He was careful, he prepared, so what had he done to do this? He had lit the propane heater, but that had no open flame. Maybe a propane line had burst, but he had smelled nothing, and propane stinks. This doesn't make any sense, thought Ben.
Labels: by mcnalan, Foreign Body Reaction
