I want to thank my friend, theduck1930 for his help in editing this story. He is a big help to me. I also want to thank him for his patience with me as well.
Everyone in this story is eighteen and older.
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Shortly after May, my sister, turned eighteen she left home to go to college in the town I lived in and to make it easier on finances, I let her move in with me, since she wasn't able to get in a dorm on campus. Dad had only allowed her so much a month for a place to live off campus, which wasn't enough for her to live on or pay for a place to live, and to buy her required books.
In three months, May and I had worked out a pretty good deal so that she could get her education and I, was able to go to work and not have to come in and either order out for delivery or cook something. May did the cooking for us, it made her feel like she was helping me out since I paid the house payment and bought the food we ate. The money dad allotted May for the dorm rent; I let her keep for her personal hygiene things and her books. I even paid for one of her books she needed, for no reason at all, except to show her my love.
Growing up I always looked after May the best that I could and still try not to get in the way of her dates, except for two boys that wouldn't leave her alone, when she wanted to break it off. That is when I stepped in and got the two boys to leave her alone with the promise of breaking their arms, if they kept pestering her.
I wasn't very good at making good grades when I was in school and as soon as I graduated from the twelfth grade, I left home to go to work with a construction company two hours south from where May and I grew up at. May and I grew up in central Oklahoma in a small town, just south of the big city. Growing up in Oklahoma, it was considered tornado alley and I had planned on moving out of Oklahoma, to get out of tornado alley. I didn't make it out. I believe at times I made it deeper into tornado alley.
Working construction it had helped in getting me in shape physically, with the bending and the lifting of some pretty heavy stuff.
May was so smart that she had no trouble with school and played sports in school, but I struggled so much, that school sports was out of the question for me. My sports were hunting, fishing, and camping, with dad on the weekends and May, would go with us sometimes. She liked to camp and fish, more than hunt.
I started buying a house and one year later May moved in with me. May had been here three months when dad died. We went to the funeral and then returned home, two days later. May went back home during a break in school and reported to me, when she returned that mom has turned to drinking so much that she was going to drop out of school for now, to take care of mom, but mom ran May off and told her, not to come back ever again.
I had a three day weekend come up so I went home to find mom not home and one hour later, I get a phone call that she is in jail and her bail is set and when I was told what the bail was, I had to leave mom there due to it being set so high. She had been locked up before for drunk driving and now she was driving with no driver's licenses and hit another car, injuring the driver and passenger of the other car. They really don't expect the passenger to make it, she was injured so badly. The following day the passenger of the other car ended up not making it.
May and I made it to the trial and it turned out mom got life in prison for the death of the passenger, along with some other charges. May and I spent that night at mom's house after we went to a restaurant for supper.
May had spring break and I took a vacation from my job so we could go through and clean mom's house, starting by cleaning out the trash that had collected for however long. We threw out so many empty bottles and cans, it wasn't funny really. The house was finally clean smelling again, the way mom used to keep it. "Now we need to figure out if we want to keep the house or sell it." I said, grabbing myself a glass of ice tea.
"Yes I know." May said, holding her glass out for me to fill it up with ice tea. "I hate to sell it but yet, I really don't want to live here. I had an idea on what to do with the house but, I wouldn't know how to do the repairs, as needed."
As May and I sat at the kitchen snack bar, "What is your idea on what to do with the house?"
"I thought about renting the house out and some of the money I got off of it, I would give to you till I had your half bought and paid off if, we can decide on a price for the house. Or we could be partners in renting the house and split the profit between us."
"It sounds like a good idea if you know how to screen people to rent this house. You don't want someone that is going to destroy the house or not pay the rent, when it is due."
"I don't know how to do that and I don't know anyone that does."
May took a drink looking to be in deep thought and I took a drink, then said, "We can sleep on it and then decide later. Besides we need to talk to a lawyer before we do anything with this house anyway." I said, and then took another drink.
That was one year ago and after talking to a lawyer and thinking about what to do, May and I decided to just sell the house and be done with it.
I noticed that May seemed to be down in the dumps ever since mom's trial. I talked about renting a cabin to get away for a while during the summer but May asked, about looking to buy a cabin maybe, that seemed to make her perk up when I said, okay we'll try it. We went looking at cabins and looked at property closer to the Wichita Wild Life Refuge, just north of town, she perk up. We even found cabins for sale in Eastern Oklahoma in the Ouachita Range. May said, she would rather buy some property or a cabin in the Ouachita's, because it is cheaper over there than around Wichita's.
(The Ouachita Range is a bigger and taller mountain range where the Wichita range is smaller and the mountains get called, 'ant hills' by most people that have lived and been through the Rocky Mountains).
We finally made a deal on a piece of property in the Ouachita Mountain Range that is a good place to fish and hunt, and just sit and watch the wild life walk by, if it so choose to do so. As soon as the money was paid and the paper work signed and the deed in our hands, May seemed to be very happy and ready to make camp, right away.
With it being so late in the day, we decided to spend the night in a hotel in the closest town. The town had a hotel and an Inn. The Inn is in the middle of town and the hotel is just outside of town. The next day we went out to the property and looked it over and found a good place to make camp, when we planned to return in two weeks, when I could use my second week of vacation.
I had talked to May about her being down in the dumps and not eating like she used to. She was down from mom telling her, to leave home and not to go back again. A guy that she was going to go out with before the trial took place, was married so she broke it off with the guy when she confronted him, and he denied that he is married. I did what I could to comfort her and told her that I would never turn her away, like mom did or do and say anything, to make her feel like she isn't wanted or being used on purpose and that I loved her. I also told her; I would do all that I could to protect and support her.
The day came when we left to go to our new property, took us four and one half hours to get there, we ate the dinner that May packed, while sitting on the tail gate of the pickup. When we finished eating, we started setting up camp. Once it was set up, we took a short walk to the lake, and saw boats off in the distance on the water. For being in higher country, the water was pretty warm, about like one baths in.
Back at camp I cooked a supper for us and after we ate, we got everything cleaned up and put away, we took another short walk but in a different direction from the lake. Just as we decided to turn back toward camp, we saw a cabin that was well hid among the trees. "We'll need to check it out in the morning after breakfast, to see if it is on our property or on someone else's property." I said, more in thought for myself, than to be saying something to May.
"What are you talking about Mick?" May asked, as she looked around like she wasn't seeing the cabin.
"I'm talking about that cabin, right over there to our right." pointing to the cabin.
"Aren't we right in the middle of our property?" May asked, looking toward the cabin then at me.
"From what I'm told and what I've seen, I believe we are. I'll have to take a little closer survey of this area tomorrow. It's getting too late in the day to do much now." we then turned and started back toward our camp.
The following morning when May and I finished breakfast, I double checked our paper work on the property and made sure of our direction of travel across the property, toward the cabin.
In keeping track of our travel and where our markers are, the cabin is right in the middle of the property and not very far, from where we have our camp set up for the week. May and I took a walk around the cabin and from the outside of it, it looked to be in pretty good shape. It had all the signs of being kept up like one does with their own home, or use for their vacation time, or during hunting season, and maybe even spends a weekend in, to just relax and maybe do some fishing in the lake.
"Are we going to check out inside of the cabin?" May asked me, as we completed making a circle around the cabin, while we walked around to the front of the cabin.
"I was just thinking about checking it out." I stepped up on the porch that faced toward the dirt road we had driven on, to get to the property.
I tried the door as May stepped up on the porch and the door opened, even though it had a lock, the door wasn't locked. Looking around the cabin as we both stepped into it, we saw that it is a one room cabin with a bed along one wall, a couch along another short wall, a snack bar that divided the kitchen from the dining area. The dining area has a table in the middle of it and just to the right of the kitchen area; one could see a door to a small room, behind the couch. Looking into the room it was a bathroom with a shower, a toilet, and a small sink in the corner. "The realtor said there is no running water up here."
"Yes but I saw what looked to be a well house back off to the east over by the edge of all that underbrush."
"Is that what that little building is back there?"
"Yes it is."
May and I went out to the well house to see it looked to be in good working order, if it had electric power going to it. I found the electrical box and a switch that was in the on position with wiring that ran underground.
"I remember seeing another building that looked to be a tool shed while we walked around the cabin earlier, so let's go check it out."
Stepping into the shed there were tools all on one wall, shovels and rakes in one corner, and some power tools on a shelf on another wall, and then along another wall was a generator.
In checking out the generator, I saw it still had gas. Checking a couple of gas cans, one was empty, and the other one is full. I started the generator and after I had it started, I flipped a switch on and a light came on overhead then. "There is light." May said.
"Yes and we should have running water if there is any water in the well. How about you go in and turn on some water to see if there is any that come out of a faucet? Once you do and if there is, then you can let me know if there is. I'll be at the well house just in case there isn't any and I need to turn a valve, or do something else."
