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Mack eyed the beanpole of a man, skin brown as a nut and tough as leather, thinking in another ten years he would be his twin. He extended his hand to the builder.
“Mack Barlow. We talked on the phone.” Feeling the calluses on the hand the man extended, he realized how soft his hands had gotten in the time he’d been out of work.
“Walker,” the man said as introduction. “Let’s get one thing straight right off. I run the job. You’d be a carpenter, nothing more.”
“I’m the one writing the checks.”
“Understand that.” The man narrowed his eyes. “But two roosters in the pen only leads to a cockfight. It’s my crew . . .” He nodded toward a group of men reinforcing a wall at the back of the duplex. “I give the orders.”
“Okay, you run the job.” Mack hesitated as he strapped on his tool belt. “Mind if I use my own tools?”
“Most do,” Walker said. “You’ll be working with that bunch over there.” He motioned to a group of carpenters getting ready to set roof braces in place. The sound of hammering punctuated the air like mortar blasts. “Follow me. I’ll make your acquaintance.”
Mack followed after the man called Walker, shook hands all around, and decided not to bother trying to remember names as it was a short-term deal.
“Well then,” Walker said when introductions were done. “Let’s get to it.”
Mack worked, measuring, marking, cutting, pounding. Hoisting his twenty-two-ounce framing hammer, he nailed ring-shank nails in wood. The hammer an extension of his right arm, the vibration pounded through tendons and ligaments. He felt back muscles tighten as he lifted joists overhead, winced as fresh-cut wood snagged his palms, felt sweat bead on his forehead and tasted salt on his lips. Before long, however, he got into a rhythm. He had found his groove.
All day long, the man called Walker stuck to his side, putting in as good a day as the others. Both units were framed by the end of day and Walker speculated the shingles would be on and the place watertight in another couple of days.
Mack decided the contractor was an all right guy. “You move fast,” he said as he removed his tool belt.
Walker stood next to him, doing the same. “Bid by the job, not the hour.”
Mack nodded. “No need to drag your heels then. But I’ve known some that put time ahead of quality.”
Walker straightened his back, giving him a look.
“Glad to see you’re not that kind,” Mack said hastily. “You do good work.”
Walker gave a nod. “My dad was a builder, as was his dad. Can’t get as good timber these days, but I do the best I can with what I got.” He hesitated. “But I gotta tell you straight up, what you’re doing here doesn’t make a helluva lot a sense.”
Mack loaded his tools into the back of the Bronco. “How’s that?”
“Building a custom home here. This town’s on its last legs, don’t see it ever pulling out of it. Just throwing good money down a hole.”
“It’s for my mother and aunt. I want them to be safe.” Mack gave a nod to the other duplexes. “Those cracker boxes won’t withstand a big windstorm, much less a tornado.”
Walker laughed. “Hell, not much withstands a tornado, it’s a big one.” He nodded toward the duplex they’d worked on all day. “You think that better lumber would withstand a three on the Fujita scale?”
Mack took in the extra bracing, the heavier timber and joists, and said, “It might.”
“Well,” Walker said, scratching his chin, “it might at that. But look at it this way. The people buying these places are on their last legs, probably won’t live to see the linoleum wear out. Don’t take me wrong, I know your intentions are good, but hell, think about it. Why go for the best money can buy when good enough’ll do?”
Mack considered this. “A stout house would give me peace of mind. There’s something to be said for peace of mind.”
Another nod. “Yeah, there is, ‘specially when you’re not around to check on things.” Walker stretched, his backbone plinking like a xylophone. “And this here work sure don’t allow for that.”
“So let me get this straight,” Mack said, still chewing on the man’s words. “It was your folks, you’d put them in one of those cracker boxes?”
“Hell, the place they live in now’s a cracker box. No way my dad would leave the home place. He’s retired now, lives out in Chickasaw County. We talked once about these retirement complexes and tornados, mobile phones, things like ‘at. All I could talk him into was a safe room. You know, those reinforced rooms they’re putting in houses now?”
Mack paused, looking thoughtful. “I heard about those.”
“Rented a backhoe, didn’t have a basement on the house, you see, so we dug a hole just big enough for a safe room. Folks don’t even have to leave the house to get to it. Just walk down the steps and lock the door.”
“That was a damn good idea.”
“Got ‘em a weather radio, too. You hear ‘bout them? You program this radio to certain bands and it goes off when there’s a storm coming.”
“Guy I work for in the Panhandle has one,” Mack said.
“Oklahoma Panhandle?”
“Texas. Sounds like you done right by your folks.”
“Hell, who’s to say. I mean, if a tornado comes in the middle of the night and they don’t hear the radio, well . . .” Walker shrugged. “They take their hearing aids out at night, you see.”
“Sounds like you did the best you could.”
“I figure it’s a coin toss. Any way to flip it, they got a fifty-fifty chance. Let’s face it, that’s all any of us got.”
Mack nodded thoughtfully.
“Anyhow,” Walker continued. “I finally stopped mouthing off about it. My Pa would look at me and say, ‘You don’t take a few chances, life would get mighty dull.’”
“Some truth to that,” Mack said, tracing his bottom lip with his index finger.
Walker opened the door of his truck. “Told the guys I’d catch up with them at that bar out on 69. You’re welcome to join us.”
“Another time, maybe. Got some loose ends to tie up.”
Walker dipped his chin. “You put in a good day’s work, Barlow. I’d hire you on, you was interested. We mostly do this kind of stuff. Whole blasted country’s getting old.”
“Thanks, but I prefer the big and wide.”
“And it’s your dime,” Walker added. “I like a man who respects his family. We’ll do this place your way, you’ll get no more lip outta me.”
Mack watched the truck pull away, wondering what it was about this place that made boozers and philosophers of people.
Might it be those tornadoes? came the whisper in his ear.
Realizing that he was the last man standing on the site, Mack walked around the empty shell of a duplex, thinking on Walker’s words.
“It’s still the right thing to do,” he mumbled. “It’s different when your folks are women living alone and that far out of town.” His thoughts went to Nonny Folsom then, and he shook his head. “She’s not mine to worry about.”
He walked into the second unit, which he had not yet found a buyer for, and thought again of Nonny. On an impulse, he decided to pay her a visit on the drive out to see if she had thought of someone who might be interested in buying it. Like it or not, she was his ace in the hole.
Ace won’t do it, Pard, came the retort in his head. You’re trying to fill an inside straight.
