free hit counters
Chapter 38
"So how many dogs did you come back with?" Jackie asked, looking up from the sign she was working on. She usually tried not to work on Saturdays, but orders were orders, and the customer was antsy about this one.
"Just Cumulus, again," Mark reported. "But, something will turn up, sooner or later. Mike and I are going to get started on the sled."
Jackie shook her head. "I know you two were all aglow with the idea last night, but I'd sort of hoped you'd sobered up by this morning."
Mark and Mike went through a pair of double doors that separated Jackie's sign shop from Mark's general shop. His shop was well fitted out, neat and clean. "Nice shop," Mike commented.
"I have to make supports and stuff for Jackie's signs, sometimes" Mark said, "So it helps to have everything nice and handy."
They had left Horton's sled outside the garage door before they started for town earlier in the morning; now, Mark opened the door, letting the fresh breeze of early summer blow in. It smelt warm and refreshing, full of life. The two carried the sled inside, and set it on
a pair of sawhorses. "Going to have to get some rawhide," Mark said. "I don't know where we'd get that, but I suppose for today, string and duct tape will do."
"There's a guy down by Albany River that slaughters steers," Mike said. "Maybe he could help out."
"Give him a call," Mark suggested. "You'll have to use the phone in the sign shop."
Mike was back a few minutes later, to find Mark on a stepladder, rummaging around lumber stored up in the rafters. "He says he sells all his hides to a guy over in Lynchburg," he reported. "So, I called the guy in Lynchburg. He's going to cut us some strips, and drop
them off at the office when he's over here Monday."
"Sounds good," Mark's voice came floating down from above. "Damn it, I know it's up here somewhere."
"What are you looking for?" Mike asked.
"I've got some ash up here somewhere," Mark said. "I got into furniture making a little a few years ago, and I got some from that mill over in Hoselton. It ought to be pretty seasoned, by now."
It took Mark a few more minutes to find the lumber, and the two of them snaked several planks down from the rafters. They laid it on the floor, and turned to the sled. "Where do we start?" Mike asked.
Mark shrugged. "There's nothing to do but start somewhere," he said. "God, look at all the steam bending that's going to have to get done. It won't matter that we don't have any rawhide today, because we're not going to get that far." He picked up a tape, and began
to take measurements.
After a few minutes, Mike began to feel a little useless. Over at a desk at the end of the workbench, he saw a computer, and that gave him an idea for something useful. "You got a word processing program on that computer?" he asked.
"Yeah," Mark said. "What you got in mind?"
"I thought I'd write up my notes from last night, while it's still fresh in my mind," he said.
"It doesn't have a hard drive, so you have to boot it from that blue disk," Mark said. "When it gets to the main screen, tell it `TEXT'."
Mike went over and turned on the computer, and within a few seconds, green line after green line was taking place under his fingers. Horton had talked a lot, and there was a lot to get down from his scribbled notes. He hardly noticed when he heard Mark running the
table saw, but soon a wonderful smell began to fill the shop, and that got his attention.
Mark had the saw set up, and the smell of the sawdust was filling the air as he cut strip after strip off of one of the planks. After a while, he shut down the saw. "That sure smells nice," Mike remarked.
"Yeah, nothing like the smell of good hardwood," Mark agreed. "Guess I might as well start with the runners. Let's see, I'm going to need something for a jig . . ."
Page after page went by on the green computer screen, with Mike giving his attention to what he was writing; he wasn't trying to care too much about grammar or diction, just get the thoughts down. Occasionally, he asked Mark about one point or another, where the
notes weren't too clear, and a couple of times Mark came over to read what was going onto the screen.
After a while, they broke for lunch. Mike went home to eat, and Kirsten corralled him into some chores, so it was the middle of the afternoon before he was back in Mark's shop. The boards that would become the runners now were suspended from the rafters, their
ends in a garbage bucket fill of water, which was being heated on a gas stove. "Boy, am I glad I don't have to do the whole length of those things," Mark said. "I can steam bend the rails a little easier, but this is going to take a while."
"We're going to have four runners?" Mike asked.
"Pretty well need them if we're going to have two sleds," Mark said. "No point in having to go back and do everything from scratch if we don't have to."
"But all we need is one sled," Mike protested.
"Hell," Mark said. "You know and I know where this is going to come out, and next fall, we're going to be too busy to want to take time to build another sled."
