Life Goes On, page 13
part #7 of The Yellowstone Event Series
Randy pondered the option and passed.
Instead he signed for a load of lumber and headed for a place called Hulaville, California.
Now, Randy had driven the highways of California for many years. He’d been to most of the cities in the Golden State many times. The few cities he’d never been to? He at least knew where they were.
But Hulaville stumped him.
He’d never heard of it.
He did what truckers always do when picking up a load destined for a place they’ve never been.
He asked other truckers.
Chapter 39
The transfer facility had a trucker’s lounge which served the best coffee in ten counties.
Randy sat at a table with a couple of old timers, men he’d known for years. Over the road truckers tend to share many of the same habits.
One is that they tend to drive the same routes, over and over, year after year.
A trucker who is based in California tends to make most of his runs in California. The same is true of truckers in Illinois and Utah and all the other states.
That isn’t true in all cases, of course. Some truckers love the open road so much they jump at every opportunity to carry a load across several states. They’re typically men (and women) without strong ties to a particular place.
Most truckers, though, have a home, or at least a base, in a particular state or region and tend to stay close by as much as possible.
For Randy Brown, a native Californian, the vast majority of his loads in recent years were picked up and dropped off in his home state.
Another trait common among truckers is that they meet a lot of people and make a lot of casual friends. But that they only have a few of those friends who are really close.
For Randy, two such close friends, also California based, shared coffee with him on this particular day.
They were Frank and Tom, and the three of them were closer than most brothers.
He asked his friends as he sat down, “Either of you guys ever heard of a place called Hulaville?”
Frank, just a bit grumpy until his third cup of coffee, grunted and said, “Hell, ain’t no place like that in California. Try Hawaii. That’d be my bet.”
Tom said, “Don’t listen to that old fart. It’s down there by Victorville. Or Hesperia, to be more precise. Just take the I-15 down to Apple Valley and follow the signs.”
“How come I’ve never heard of it?”
“Because it didn’t exist until a month ago. Heck, it only exists on paper now. Won’t be any residents there until they finish building.
“I took a load down there about three weeks ago. PVC pipe. Hulaville is one of the new cities the government is building from scratch for the refugees. The lady who off-loaded me said it’s expected to be a town of eighty thousand people within two years. They’re building a hundred houses at a time. Same time that’s going on they’ve got commercial builders putting in supermarkets and gas stations and retail stores.”
Tom paused to take a sip of coffee.
Frank took the lull as an opportunity to grunt again and say, “If you ask me, I think it’s a damned foolish idea to build brand new towns from scratch, when all they gotta do is build onto cities that are already there.”
“Who knows why the government does things? What the lady told me was that the government can’t buy land in existing cities because everybody’s jacked up their prices in anticipation of the government making an offer. She said vacant land in San Diego County was going for three thousand an acre before the eruption. Now it’s ten times that.
“She said the government isn’t willing to pay those prices, so they’re building on land they already own.
“And they just happen to own most of the land along Interstate 15 near Hesperia.”
Frank the grouch grunted again.
“If you ask me, it’s a stupid name. Hulaville. Where’d they come up with such a stupid name?”
Randy caught Tom’s eye and winked before answering, “Well, that’s why we didn’t ask you, Frank. Because you’re such a damn grouch.”
Tom explained the name.
“It just so happens I asked the forklift driver why they called the new town Hulaville. She told me it was in honor of a man named Mahan who used to live nearby.
“Apparently Mahan was a collector of things. He owned half an acre of land on I-15 and he turned it into a tourist attraction. He hung empty wine bottles from Joshua trees and put up all kinds of folk art and stuff.
“When he put out a twelve-foot tall painting of a hula girl he’d bought from a billboard company, the locals started calling the place Hula Ville, and the name stuck.
“She said thousands of people would stop every year and ask about the place, and Mahan took the time to stop and talk to every one of them. He became something of a local hero and it was said he never said an unkind word about anybody. That everybody was his friend.”
Randy said, “In other words, he was nothing at all like Frank.”
Frank grunted and flipped off his friend, then got up for another cup of coffee.
Tom chuckled.
“Exactly.
“Anyway, Mahan died years ago and the land was bulldozed. Some of the artifacts were put in a local museum, but other than that there are few signs that Hula Ville was ever there.
“When FEMA came in and said they were going to build a new town from scratch, some of the locals suggested naming it in honor of Mahan.
“It turned out there’s already a little town in California called Mahan. It’s up around Sacramento somewhere.
“So the best they could do was to call the new town Hulaville, and erect a statue of Mahan in the town square.
“When are you pulling out?”
“They’re loading me up now. I should be on the road in a couple of hours.”
“Just head south on the I-15 toward Hesperia. Once you’re there follow the signs to the Hulaville site. And once you’re there find Becky. She’s the best forklift driver they’ve got and she’ll get you off-loaded in no time at all. Tell her Tom said hello. See if she remembers me.”
Chapter 40
Katie and Jacob were struggling.
They’d only been married for three weeks when Yellowstone blew her top and threw the planet into chaos.
And it wasn’t under the best of circumstances.
Katie was in her second year of college when she got pregnant with a guy she’d gone to high school with.
A guy her parents had never approved of.
A guy from the wrong side of town, from a family beneath Katie’s own socially and economically.
A guy Katie’s parents were convinced would drag her down. Keep her from completing her dream of becoming a doctor.
A guy they thought she left behind when she went to college in another town.
A guy who, unbeknownst to Katie’s parents, followed her there to continue their relationship.
It was a typical Romeo and Juliet romance. Lovers who were meant to be together despite the whole world being against them. Such relationships happen all the time and usually come to a bitter end.
Sometimes, though, the lovers fight hard to stay together. Their determination is stronger than the forces bent on keeping them apart.
Such was the case of Katie and Jacob.
When she became pregnant her parents flew into a rage.
They’d take her to get an abortion, they said.
“Oh, no you won’t,” she countered.
“If you don’t give up the baby we’ll stop paying your tuition,” they said.
“Go ahead,” she responded. “I’d rather quit school and become a mother anyway.”
Her mother had dreamed for years about a big church wedding for her only child.
All the right people would be there. All the right media would cover it.
The reception would be talked about for years.
Katie’s pregnancy would ruin everything, in her mother’s mind.
Heck, Katie’s selection of a groom her mother considered beneath the family would ruin it, even if she hadn’t been pregnant.
But the baby bump which was starting to show sealed the deal.
Her mother told Katie she ruined the family’s reputation.
Abortion was offered as the only possible solution.
But Katie refused.
Her father came up with a second solution. She was to swear off Jacob; to say publicly it was a rape child. They’d allow her to stay in their family, and to raise the child on her own. But Jacob had to go.
They could not, her father insisted, allow an inferior bloodline to contaminate the family.
The impasse finally resolved itself when Katie chose her man over her family.
They ran away together and eloped.
Not in the traditional sense, but rather by taking the United States government up on one of their relocation programs.
In retaliation for her parents advocating an abortion for her baby, she refused to tell them of their plans.
All her family knew was that the couple disappeared from their Orlando suburb one morning without a trace.
If their friends knew where they went they weren’t telling.
Same for Jacob’s parents.
Katie’s parents were sorrowful and filled with regret.
They wanted to talk to their daughter. To find out how she was doing. To tell her they were sorry. To make things whole again.
Well, almost.
They still didn’t give a diddly damn about Jacob. They’d tolerate him, but only if they had to.
Katie made it clear, by her refusal to contact them, that they wouldn’t have to.
Katie was headstrong and stubborn as an old mule.
When she made up her mind about something it was made up forever.
To Katie, she had only one family left: Jacob and their unborn baby.
The mother and father who’d raised her were now dead to her. And if she never went back to Florida again, that was fine with her.
They were starting fresh in Alaska.
She was an only child, and was doted on by her paternal grandmother.
The old woman died when Katie was eighteen and willed her house to her.
It was nothing fancy, the house.
But it was in a nice neighborhood and had some value.
More importantly, it met the criteria one of the government relocation programs demanded, and was offered up to a family being evacuated from Wyoming.
Katie met with the family and got to know them.
And she swore them to secrecy.
“My mother and father will come looking for me,” she said.
“They abused me horribly for most of my life. I’m terrified of them. I don’t want them to know where I am. Please tell them only that I sold you the house, but don’t tell them anything other than that.”
It wasn’t true.
Katie’s parents had always been kind to her.
And though they were far from perfect and made their share of mistakes, they had only her best interests at heart.
It was Katie’s last act of vengeance for what they wanted to do to her baby.
And she never looked back.
They were given a recreational vehicle, just as Tony and Hannah had been.
Their journey was much longer, since they had to skirt the southern part of the country to San Diego before starting the long trek north along the Pacific Coast.
It took them a full three weeks to make it to Canada, then another two weeks to make Anchorage.
By the time they arrived at Etlunka Lake she was three months along.
Chapter 41
Katie and Jacob were meant for each other. Everybody said so. They were young and inexperienced but daring enough to take on the whole wide world.
And so much in love.
Outsiders, though, could see why her parents thought Jacob beneath her.
He was a sweet kid, but lacked her motivation.
He lacked her drive and initiative too.
Most of all he lacked her common sense and intelligence.
All parents hope their daughters fall in love with men who are strong, capable and smart. Strong enough to protect their little girls, capable of providing for them and smart enough to make the right decisions.
Nothing breaks a father’s heart faster than watching his daughter fall in love with a man who falls short in one of those areas.
That was the main reason Katie’s parents objected to her relationship with Jacob from the beginning.
He was a nice guy, and he obviously loved their daughter.
But it was plain to see that he was lacking in the intelligence department.
He was a man prone to making mistakes. To forget to use common sense.
Some called him slow, among other things. And to be sure he was a klutz, clumsy to the core.
Katie’s father once indelicately called him “retarded,” and was taken to task by his wife.
She threatened to leave him unless he apologized, and counseled him a hundred times about how hurtful such a once-common but now very harmful and destructive term can be.
He replaced the word with another slam, calling Jacob a “walking disaster.”
Katie wouldn’t speak to her dad for a week after that. It wasn’t that she could argue with the characterization. It was just the insulting way he worded it. For while it was an adequate description of poor Jacob, it was harsh, and he was talking about the man she loved.
And none of us can help who we fall in love with.
Chapter 42
Jacob did a lot of things fairly well. He was an adequate housekeeper, an acceptable driver and an okay fisherman.
He claimed to do a few things exceptionally well, but even he couldn’t name any.
If there was one thing in the world he did better than anyone else he knew, it was this: he made way more than his share of mistakes.
He’d run out of gas at least once a month since he started driving two years before (after finally passing his driver’s test on the fifth try).
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the need for putting gas in the tank; he just had a habit of forgetting to check the gauge.
The first time he changed a flat tire he remembered to screw the lug nuts finger tight before lowering the jack.
But forgot to make them tighter once the tire was on the ground.
His blunder caused over eight hundred dollars in damage.
Vehicle maintenance wasn’t the only area where his lack of common sense was so evident.
It was apparent in everything he did.
He just wasn’t as good as most people in the thinking department.
He got along okay when he was with Katie, because Katie did a lot of his thinking for him.
She had his back, to quote a very overused phrase.
When they were together he was able to get through his day without killing or maiming himself or others.
And when they ran away from Florida together they got along famously. They made a wonderful team. She provided the brains and he did exactly what she told him to do.
Together they would conquer the world.
As time went on and the baby inside her grew, though, Katie felt less and less like getting out.
She sometimes opted out when he went duck hunting or fishing but reminded him to be careful.
One morning Katie backed out of a planned fishing date because she had a bad bout of morning sickness.
She kissed her man goodbye as he put on his chest waders and headed out the door, promising to bring home a mess of fish for dinner.
She never saw him again. Not dead or alive.
He fished from the shore for a couple of hours but was having no luck at all.
That wasn’t a surprise, necessarily. Every fisherman knows that sometimes the fish bite. Sometimes they don’t. It’s not the end of the world, and there’s no shame in returning home with an empty stringer.
But Katie was the love of his life. He lived for making her smile and brightening her day. He’d promised her fresh fish for dinner, by God, and he’d deliver.
One of their new friends at the lake brought a sixteen-foot aluminum canoe strapped to the top of his RV. Larry used the canoe to fish on the days when fishing from the shore wasn’t working.
And since he was a very friendly and generous guy, he made it available to his friends when he wasn’t using it himself.
He passed the word: “If it’s there and I’m not in it, it’s fair game. Help yourself and happy fishing.”
Now it was permanently tied to a small dock the men had built on the edge of the lake.
Jacob had used a fishing boat many times in Florida, but never a canoe.
He knew the basics, though. That it worked roughly the same way a fishing boat did.
But that since it was narrower and didn’t have a flat bottom it wasn’t quite as stable.
He paddled out, still in his waders but not seeing that as a problem.
He was a poor swimmer but had no intention on going swimming on this particular day. So he left the life vest tucked under his seat.
Besides, he hated wearing a life vest. It was humiliating. Nobody else wore one.
He paddled out about fifty yards and was doing okay. He brought in four fair-sized fish and was on his way to making good on his promise of a fish fry for dinner.
Then the fish stopped biting, as they sometimes tend to do.
But over his left shoulder, another fifty yards or so farther into the lake, he kept seeing jumpers flying out of the water.
Good-sized jumpers. Rainbow trout. Good eating.
He did what any good fisherman would do: he moved his boat.
After another hour he had seven fair to good-sized fish. Two or three more and he’d call it a day.
Then his line got snagged on something beneath the water. A tree branch, probably, or a wrecked boat.
