FBR chapter 3 scene 4 and a family visit in the desert

Hi free chickens! Here is scene 4. Sorry to be late a day, family was visiting here in the desert with me. Of course the weather was generally horrible, and now today as they move north, the sun is out, and it is quite beautiful.
My brother and his wife Gail visited, and my nephew Dave drove down from Las Vegas. We did Q mountain, took many pictures and visited the petroglyphs and grind holes. We ate. We ate a lot. My brother brought me a Nikon camera, a D70, and it is amazing. I will be putting up pictures on the main site in the next day or two. No words describe how easy it is to use (on full auto - I have get a degree to take it off of full auto) and the speed of camera. I can set it to fire continously so there WILL be bunny pictures this year. You may remember that I have only been able to take pictures of where bunnies WHERE previously. Hah!
We had a hotdog cook out last night on a fire outside of La Casa Blanca. The stars were bright, the food was fun - we cooked hotdogs on sticks. So without further ado, he is the beginning of the end of Scene 3. In the next two days I'll finish scene three and create the PDF. What Ben is telling Mark pales to what information Mark brings. This will be a major pivot point in the book, look for it later this week. - mcnalan

Foreign Body Reaction, Chapter 3, Scene 4

“Mark, oh shit am I glad to see you!”

“I wondered if I was going to find you in one piece.” said Mark.

“Do you have any idea what is going on.” Ben reached Mark, shook his hand and put and arm around his shoulder, squeezing. Mark colored slightly at the familiarity, but seemed gruffly pleased.

Behind Mark, Ben could see his old one ton ancient Chevy parked on the barest hint of a logging road. To someone who didn't understand the woods and hills of the coastal mountains, this truck was junk, a rusty heap of embarrassment for any city dweller. But to someone who had logged, cruised, planted, worked a fire wood and cat operation, who skidded, who bucked, chucked and delivered hundreds of cords of firewood per season, this was the Holy Grail of woods capability.

Four wheel drive on a one ton chassis. A PTO driven winch bolted to a front bumper made of an I-beam that weighed more than most economy cars. The original rusted bed had been removed and a flat bed of two by six oak created, with stake bed sides. The bed was filled with chain saws, shovels, rope and metal cable. Five gallon buckets lined the front of the bed, just behind a diamond plate tool chest that sat just beneath th rear window. The color was approximately tan, except where brown doors that actually could close had been bolted into place. The old 454 cubic inch engine, sporting an increasingly rare carburetor powered this old truck driving through a manual 5 speed transmission, with an ultra low first gear.

Ben didn't take all that in at this moment because his relief at finding his friend was almost making him giddy. He hadn't realized how frightened he had been, the pressure since last night until right this moment. Mark saw the look on Ben's face and said, “Get in, we got to get out of here. You can tell me what's going on while we drive.”

“I've got to get back around the mountain to where I stashed my cache first,” said Ben.

Mark smiled, “Christ Ben, I don't know who is after you or why, but you left a trail like a super highway behind you. I stopped at what is left of your trailer, oh yea, what that fuck is that about – and I've been following you and those SUV's, helicopters since then. I picked up your cache and equipment after they left. I figured if you were going to come out of that mountain, I would start on this side and work up. So your stuff is locked in the back, I'll drive, you talk. What is all this?”

Mark had started the truck put it into gear, executed a three point turn and headed down the trail. Before answering him, Ben just looked at Mark.

Mark stood six foot one inch, a lanky powerful man with a bushy beard that was going to gray just a bit. His black hare would have been over his ears, but right now was pulled back into a pony tail. He had intelligent piercing brown eyes, belied by a relaxed body that seemed at rest, at home, anywhere. He wore a tattered pin striped railroad shirt, tucked into worn jeans that were stagged four inches above where the cuff would normally end. Heavy laced work boots completed the package. His Levi coat and several pairs of worn work gloves were on the seat beside Ben.

Most of the gages on truck didn't work, but the Mark had turned the heater up to full. The hot air was toasting Ben, and he had to fight the lethargic combination of relief, and warmth.

While Mark waited for Ben to collect his thoughts, he drove quickly through the alder tree canopy that arched above the road as they neared the bottom of the hills, and began following the creek that is inevitably in the bottom of every range of hills in western Oregon. Mark reached behind the bench seat and brought out a gallon milk jug of water and handed it over to Ben. A second pass behind the seat brought out a zip lock bag of homemade venison jerky. He pushed both to Ben and said, “Drink up!”

Ben had met mark earlier this year. When Jacob's company had won the right to do the row inspections on the Pacific Connector, Ben had started closed to Coos Bay at the Liquid Natural Gas end of the pipeline. It was his second day on the job when he met Mark.

Mark was a contractor, an jack of all trades in the woods. He had worked as a timber cruiser, done insect studies for OSU, and had a farm somewhere in the coast range up towards Monroe. This day, Mark was working for US Bank. Much of the condemnation of property necessary for building the pipeline had been through Indian Land. US Bank managed the forests for several tribes both in western and eastern Oregon. Part of that management were loans against the future value of growing trees. Someone had to make sure the trees cut down where paid for by the Federal government. Of course this could have all worked with the bank simply taking the governments counts and word, but in fact, the forestry department of all large banks in the Pacific northwest, is a fact of life. From cutting, burning, replanting, and pre-commercial thinning, all the banks used people like Mark. They used people comfortable in the woods, but contractors because of the danger of the job.

That suited Mark perfectly. When there was work, he took his truck and equipment and acted as the bank's eyes and ears, as well as being an accomplished faller, skidder, and bucker.

As the pipeline had hopscotched the route, as it was built by many companies simultaneously in many sections, Mark and Ben had increasingly run into each other. Despite Ben's need for solitude, which Mark respected, they had become friends. The were almost polar opposites. Ben was somewhat nervous, a list maker, a thinker who extrapolated out into the future and tried to solve problems before they occurred. Mark was comfortable anywhere and confident of his capabilities to solve any problem, but felt no need to solve them before they occurred. His future was living day to day in the woods, that was the penultimate positive. Mark liked to keeps his equipment working, but had no status connotation to anything that he owned. Everything of importance that Mark possessed did something important, critical to his continuing freedom to be moving through the magnificent forests of Oregon.

Mark was not a talker, but not antisocial. Mark listened, and he liked to listen. Ben liked to talk. The became good friends, and when they crossed paths, they often camped together.

Ben ate and thought, trying to put what had happened. He tried to make sense and tell Mark what had happened. Mark crossed an only railroad grade, where the tracks had been removed for the steel, and drove down the railroad ties, a bone jarring ride, to th mouth of a tunnel. The mouth faced south, and Mark pulled in only far enough to put the truck in deep shadow.

The truck was good and hot and Mark shut off the truck. He listened as Ben told him of everything that had happened since he has seen the cougar. Mark listened without interruption, though what he had to tell Ben, when Ben was finished, would change both their lives forever.

end chapter 3 scene 4.