Author's note:
I am a new author here at Lit, and I'd genuinely appreciate your constructive comments. But first, I would like to thank Gamblnluck for his kind assistance in getting these stories kick-started and posted. And thanks to you for reading this. I hope you enjoy going out into the bayous and swamp.
If you are looking for a stroke story, this is not it. All characters are over the age of 18.
==============
Coven of the Ancient Swamp - Chapter 3
The Glade
Jack and I were standing at the foot of the old dock, "Shep? I know you want to start in on rebuilding the dock. But bossman, there's a huge old water-logged stump out in the channel, and neither Zeke nor I can figure out how to move the damm thing, and it's gotta go. Do you think that your Navy buddies might have something big enough to move it? That stump has to be four or five feet around and with all the roots on it upwards of eight feet long."
Trying to picture the submerged monster with all the roots hanging off of it. "Shadow, what do you think?" That resulted in some loud barking and serious tail wagging. I was standing there trying to picture how to get the thing out of the water.
"Guys, let me go talk to my old boss and the Seabees and see what they have to say. Be back in a little while. Come on, Shadow, let's go to town. Do you two know if everybody is going home tonight? I'd like to talk with everyone about the changes that are afoot."
As I drove into town, I saw what had been a vacant, overgrown, weed-infested lot was now the eye of a hurricane that had become the center of the Navy's relief efforts. Walking up to a trailer, I called out, "Ensign? Is the old buzzard still around and flapping his gums, or has he flown off?" Well, that comment certainly got everyone's attention, along with a few laughs.
That led to a thunderous explosion of caustic obscenities laced with more than one or two profanities. "And hello to you, Admiral, Sir. So glad to hear that you are in such a fine voice today. Might I have a moment of your time, Sir?" I called out gleefully.
"Tom! Get your sorry ass over here! You know better than to ask for that! You and I have been around too many CF's together. What do you need! Now!"
"Two things, first I'd like to borrow whatever clodkicker you have running the SeaBees. I got a little tree stump that I need to move, though since they don't do a lot, they might be able to pick it up. Second, when you guys get around to doing an after-action report, I have a few things they might want to look at."
"Ensign! Two coffees, and on your way out, close the door. Also, get the Seabee Chief on his way here, tell him I got a little moving job for him. No calls."
So here we go again, yet one more in the long line of CF's.
"Boss, for sure, I do not have all the details yet. But here's what I think and believe is the root cause that led to the mess we see outside. Crawl Bayou is not on anybody's radar. Hell, this place does not exist on most maps. When your orders came down, sending you and the task force here, I'd bet your first question was, where the hell is this fly spec?
Almost all of the homes that were flattened by the storm were rentals. I have no heartache with people renting a home. But here, well, there seems to have been some liberties taken with the system? I'd bet you if some bright-eyed person ran down who the actual owner of the properties is, what they will find is that most of them are owned by Leopoldo Goshert. He owns, among other things, Goshert's Trading and General Merchandise and half or more of the property here in town. Bright eyes should look into the store's tax filings and whatever else is connected to the store. Now Leo likes to think of himself as Leo the Lion of the Ancient Swamp. The people here call him LL or Little Leo; we know how nicknames get hung on people.
Here the building department and tax collector offices are part of the Sheriff's office since they do various enforcement actions. It seems to me that Leo got his buddy and partner, the Sheriff, to allow non-code buildings to be put up on some of his properties around town. Non-code buildings are supposed to be in place for less than four months max. They are temporary buildings. But people have lived in these temporary buildings, hell shacks for years before the storm swept them all away, leaving people here homeless with little more than the clothes on their back. Other places that have been built in the past few years are way outside of the building code. On the coast, there are strict building codes for new construction. The code requires that the buildings be built to withstand severe storms, like what we had here the other night. Meeting code adds costs to the building but in the long run, doing so saves lives and money for everyone. There are no tie rods in place or bracing in the places I've looked at so far; no significant reinforcement was in place. The footings, if you could call them that, hell, a kid could kick them out in some buildings. What we see was a disaster waiting to happen, almost like it was pre-planned.
Boss, thanks for the coffee and your time, Sir. Let me take the SeaBees in hand and take them down the road."
Five minutes after I pulled up in front of my new cottage, the clodkicker, aka my brother, arrived. "Hey you, I have a little problem I hope you can fix; let me show you." We walked around back to the foot of the old dock. "Brother, at the far end of this old dock is a huge tree trunk that is buried down in the channel there. I'd like it up in one piece and put the stump in front of the mill. I want to clean the stump up then cut slabs off of it. I should be able to make tables from it. Is it reasonable to be able to do it?"
"Any idea how big it is?"
"Not certain, maybe four or five feet around and maybe six or eight feet long? But that's a pure WAG."
"What's the story with the dock?"
"Alright, this is my plan. The streams around here, they call them bayous, have many old logs and tree trunks or stumps laying on the bottoms. Those logs and tree trunks are called sinkers. Hell, some of these sinkers have been soaking in the waters here for hundreds of years. On my way out the door, the Navy was so kind as to give me a salvage barge that's using up space in Galveston. I can bring that barge here and use it to get sinkers off the bottom. Hell, I still have all my diving equipment, so going down and hooking up the sinker will be no problem.
To make this happen, I need to rebuild and extend the old dock. Does that answer your question?"
"Yeah, I guess. But why go fishing for that garbage on the bottom out there?"
"Good question, brother. When you get a sinker out of the water and make it into usable lumber, the wood you get is stunning. A coffee table made from a sinker can sell for more than $2,000. The stump sitting on the bottom of the bayou here that's stopping the dock from being a reality could yield at least ten slabs I can use to make ten coffee tables. So? Brother, what do you think?"
"OK, let me look." I could almost see the wheel spinning in his eyes. "My brother, this is my professional assessment of the current situation. The Navy can and will assist the local civilian population recovering from a natural disaster, such as what you experienced here. It's a shame you lost your dock out here. That dock must be replaced in total, including the old pilings. Further, it appears that there is some type of impediment in the channel that creates a hazard to navigation.
The boss has a plan to bring barges over here from Galveston that are loaded with supply containers. Oh, less than two miles down from here, the satellite survey maps show a new pass that the storm cut in that comes back here. Here's my thinking.
To make his plan work we, need a place to unload the barges. This place would be on target. But first, this dock will have to be replaced, lengthened, and have cargo handling equipment installed. Second, there will need to be a yard put up to load out heavy transporters to load the containers on heavy-duty transporters and run them up to the new base. These old pilings have to go, and new pilings hammered in, then decking laid on top and secured to the pilings to make up the new dock. That thing out in the water, that stump is a hazard to navigation. So that will have to be removed, and the channel cleared. Where the dock hits the shoreline that will need to be reinforced to prevent a washout into what you call it? Out into the bayou. I'm thinking of installing a maglev system to move the containers off the dock over a new crane that would load the heavy-duty transporters with the containers. From here, it's a quick run up Shell Road to take the supplies up to the base in town. Getting that in place will be another week or a little more. Bonehead? All this making sense to you?"
Damm, being with this clodkicker sure feels good. Then again, being with family feels good to me. "Yeah, brother makes sense, but a couple of questions. The temps that were just installed in front of the mill will have to be moved. Behind my cottage, there are footings back there for about twelve homes. That's where I want to build permanent homes for everybody. The second thing, the equipment you're talking about bringing in is going to weigh a lot. This ground here won't support heavy equipment. Hell, you run a heavy-duty transporter out back here, and it will be up to its wheel hubs in the muck."
"Good points. I will have my guys here first thing in the morning, and they'll move the temps over to where you're talking about and get them all hooked up by noon. At the same time, we'll start shooting pilings for support pads going back toward the mill and where the dock will be and reinforce the shoreline. Once that's in place, I can get my mobile crane out back here and pull the old pilings and that impediment to navigation out of the water. Then set up the dock and loading area. You good?"
