Chapter 5

Josh and Danny were down to T-shirts by the time they hit Warsaw Friday morning; it was downright hot for June.

It was amazing how fast things had gone the evening before, Josh thought. Mark had already talked to Binky, and had pretty well hammered out a deal. Once he had made it over to Mark's house, he and Mark had gone on to Binky's. It turned out that Mark had worked out a deal at $3000 for the lot, pending bank approval, on the basis of $100 to hold the deal. Not expecting that, Josh only had about $70 on him, but Mark put up the other $30. There were some papers to sign, and Binky had some more papers for the mortgage application for Spearfish Lake State Savings Bank. "Shouldn't be a problem with financing," she'd said. "Call Frank the first of the week, and with a deal this small, it should be approved by then. It's going to take a few days to get title insurance, but we ought to be able to close by this time next week."

Josh had said that was just fine. Binky asked if he was planning to build a house on it, and Josh said that was the plan, although he was going to take his time. That was the sum total of the discussion about real estate. They talked for a few minutes about the Toivo expedition; Binky was still very reluctant to go, but was considering it.

"Well, that's that," Mark had said as they drove back. "We probably shouldn't do anything out there until the closing, but you and I can go out and figure out what we're going to do."

That was what they'd done. This time, they'd walked up the driveway, more to get an idea what sort of shape it was in. They'd managed to find the well head, in a patch of tall grass, but looking as if it was still in pretty good shape, and Mark said when they got a generator up there, they could hook it up and see if it still pumped. The line to the septic tank eluded them, and was clearly going to require some digging to find, but Mark thought he could borrow the backhoe from the phone company. They tentatively agreed that a new house needed to go somewhere about where the old one had been located, and discussed a couple of potential spots to put a mobile home. They took some measurements of the barn, and Mark made some estimates for lumber and shingles. "Shouldn't be a big deal," he said.

"Well, I wonder if our girl is going to be out there today," Danny said as Josh blew for the Main Street crossing. She'd been out there, sunbathing topless, on every trip they'd made, although once they hadn't seen her until the trip back from Kremmling.

"We'll know in a minute," Josh said. He had only a few seconds to look before he had to blow for Plant Street. They'd always seen her in the next block, but no, she wasn't there, this morning. "Well, shit, maybe later," Danny said.

Josh wasn't listening. There, on the far side of Railroad Street, on the edge of town, sat an old mobile home that he hadn't noticed before. It was sitting on it's wheels, a little cockeyed in the edge of the yard, nose down and canted to one side. Josh swung his head to look, and thought he saw a "For Sale" sign in the window. He made a mental note to look a little more carefully on the way back. "Have to check that out," he said aloud.

"What'd you say?" Danny asked.

"Oh, nothing," Josh replied. He hadn't gotten around to telling Danny about the lot yet. It still seemed a little unreal.

"Hey, did you know Phil's home?" Danny said. "He got in last night."

"No, I didn't," Josh said. "Is Brandy home?"

"Probably not for another couple weeks," Danny reported. "He'll be gone by then. Christ knows where, this time."

Josh had known Phil for years, originally through Danny, but, since Josh taken up running dogs, they'd become better friends. Phil had the dogsledding bug as bad as anyone around Spearfish Lake, although with his job, owning dogs was out of the question. His job took him around the world, something to do with software on laser cutting machines that Josh never really did understand. His home office was actually in New York, of all places, but he only saw the office when he happened to be passing through the airport and had a few hours between planes to Kokura or Krakow or Kalgoorlie; it was a case of, as Phil had once said, "Here today, Gdansk tomorrow." While his job kept him gone a lot, Josh was still happy to have him as an occasional dog trainer. Phil and Tiffany had done the most to get his team, such as it was, ready for the Warsaw Run the winter before; he couldn't have even considered a middle-of-the-pack run without their help.

The only reason that Phil even bothered to stay in Spearfish Lake was his girlfriend or wife or whatever she was, Brandy Evachevski, Danny's older sister. Brandy had a job that took her all over the world, too, though she tended to be in places for longer times, a month or two, rather than Phil's shorter, more frequent trips. A mining engineer with a doctorate, she had helped invent, and was one of the few people that understood a system that used local fluctuations of something to do with the earth's magnetic field and its effect on ground electrical resistance to locate ore deposits. Her office was in Denver, but they kept a small house in Spearfish Lake, mostly because it sometimes went months between occupancies, and Brandy's parents could take care of the bills, keeping the driveway plowed out, and like that.

Brandy and Phil didn't mind not seeing each other that much; in fact, it was the only way their relationship survived. When the two were in Spearfish Lake -- or, occasionally, on the same continent elsewhere -- they always had a very intense few days. But, the intensity soon faded, because really, they didn't have that much in common -- if they had to stay together two weeks, they'd be drawing knives on each other before it was over with. Once they'd had a chance to be apart for a month or three, though, the agony of being apart would draw real pain. It was, to say the least, an unusual relationship. It had been going on for about six years, starting in college, and while it had taken a while to develop a way to make it work, they both seemed happy with it.

He was a tall, lanky guy, taller even than Mark and Jackie, but skinny enough that he looked like a puff of wind would blow him over. He looked like a basketball player, though Josh knew he wasn't; along with Danny, they'd screwed around in the driveway of the Evachevski home years before, and Brandy predictably had run rings around all three of them. One time, they'd literally tied one hand behind her back, just as a joke, and she'd still beaten them, three on one. She was only a little over five feet tall, and built like a fireplug, but she'd been all-state in high school, and all-conference in college; she'd gone through Michigan Tech half on an academic scholarship, and half on basketball, at least partly because of the fact that people tended to think that because she was short and stocky and not very pretty, she was a soft touch, which she was most assuredly not.

"It's been two, maybe three months since I saw him, and that was just for a few minutes," Josh said.

"Well, drop over and see him," Danny said. "He's feeling a little down, with Brandy not around, and something to take his mind off of Brandy being gone would help. It'd be good if you could. He'd like to go out and work with you and Tiffany and the dogs. He really likes that. And, there's not going to be much else going on this weekend. The folks are going to be gone this weekend, and I'm going to run down to Athens. I want to see about getting an apartment for next term."

"For you and Marsha?" Josh asked.

"Maybe," Danny admitted sheepishly. "We talked about it, but didn't settle anything. Her folks are, well, sort of straight. You know what I mean. Anyway we don't know how they'd take it if they found out we were living together, ring or no ring, but we can sort of do it, a little. It's got to beat living in the dorm, anyway."

Josh allowed himself to think about it for a moment. If he'd decided to go to college right out of high school, he might be in about the same situation with Amy. Thinking about setting up housekeeping, and all that. Now, he was doing it, anyway, without her. It was different than he'd imagined. When he'd been silent long enough, he said, "Those were some good times we had that first summer."

"Yeah, and the second one," Danny said. "You aren't going with anyone now, are you?"

"No," Josh said. "Right now, I've got too much happening around me to want to complicate things any more. I've been out a couple of times since last summer, but nothing substantial."

"Maybe you ought to take a run up to Warsaw some time, and check out our topless friend," Danny smirked.

"Naw, she probably wants nice brown boobs for her boyfriend to play with," Josh said, remembering Amy again. "Like I said, I'm too busy for that sort of thing right now. I can afford to wait a while."

Josh felt better after he'd had a shower, and got clean clothes on. It had been a long week, but K-Pit was tied up until 7:00 Monday morning. He'd have a whole two days to catch up. He wanted to spend some time with the dogs Saturday and Sunday, partly to let Tiffany have a break, but partly because he suspected that as soon as the closing on the lot went through, he wouldn't be able to work with them much.

Their topless friend had been out sunbathing when they came back through Warsaw, but while Danny was watching, Josh only caught a glimpse, because he had been checking out the mobile home. It was indeed a "For Sale" sign he'd seen in the window. At the speed they'd been going, it was difficult to tell much more; there was no telling what kind of shape it was in, but clearly, it was worth a run to Warsaw for a closer look. Warsaw was probably the best place locally to go looking, anyway; a lot of the town had been burned out in the fire nine years before, and there'd been a lot of mobile homes around while the place got rebuilt, and more when the new plant expanded. They had been steadily replaced by new construction over the years, but there were still several around, and probably any for sale there would be cheap.

He was headed for the edge of town when the thought crossed his mind that maybe Phil might like to go along for the ride. When Brandy wasn't around, he tended to be at loose ends. He didn't have many friends in Spearfish Lake besides the Evachevskis and Josh; he'd probably appreciate the attention, and Josh would appreciate a second opinion. He'd already asked a lot of Mark. He turned the truck around, and headed back for Phil and Brandy's house.

"I heard about your promotion," Phil said when he met Josh at the door. "Congratulations."

"I really wasn't expecting it," Josh said. "But it changes things a little. Anyway, I was wondering if you were doing anything tonight."

"Not really," Phil replied. "You got anything in mind?"

"Yeah, I need to run up to Warsaw. I've got something I want to look at, and maybe have a talk with Fred Linder, as long as I'm there. You like to ride along?"

"Sure, I've got nothing better to do," he said. "Let me get some shoes and a shirt on."

A couple minutes later, they walked out to the truck. "What's the dog box for?" Phil asked.

"I had to move some dogs earlier this week," Josh explained. "It's a long story, but maybe I had a team given to me. Tiffany and I want to take some of the older dogs out for a swim tomorrow, so I just left it on the truck."

"What's this about a team being given to you?" Phil asked as they got in the truck.

As they drove out of town, Josh went over the story about Dennis Bergen and his fight with his wife. He'd had to tell the story several times now, and he'd gotten it down to a couple of paragraphs. "So, anyway," he summed up. "I'll give him a chance to figure out if he wants his dogs back. I can wait a while. If he doesn't, well, I guess I'll do a little dogtrading. That's what I want to see Fred about, to see if he's got something he wants to trade."

"He's the fire chief up there, right? I think I met him the winter before last."

"Yeah, he was just getting into dogs then," Josh said. "He ran back behind me last winter, but I know he's got some good pups coming along."

"What's this we're going up to see?"

Josh decided not to go into the background of why, but said, "I'm buying a lot out by Mark's. I plan on putting something on it to live, and this morning, I saw a mobile home up there with a 'For Sale' sign on it."

"You want to watch out for them," Phil said. "Brandy lived in one for a couple years while we were at Houghton, down in 'Mistake by the Lake', we called it. I was always fixing something, either on hers, or on some friends."

"I knew that," Josh said. "I figured maybe you could tell what to look out for."

"You get a decent one, one that's been cared for, it'll last pretty good," Phil explained. "But the problem is, the damn things are built out of cardboard, well, particle board, anyway, and the purchasing agents are out to save a nickle on everything they can, so a lot of the stuff is shit to begin with."

"Well, I'm not planning on living in it forever," Josh said. "I've kind of got the idea of putting up a house over the next few years, as I get the time and the money."

"You're going to be working all sorts of hours, and not jack shit in the winter, right?"

"That about sums it up."

Phil shook his head. "You want to think about that a bit. You're not going to have much time in the summer, and how are you going to like being out nailing stuff together with six feet of snow and at twenty below in the winter? That could get to be a pain in the ass, all the way around."

"I hadn't thought about that," Josh said, dismayed.

"It's not undoable," Phil said. "There are ways. There's some kit houses and modulars out now that are pretty good. If you can get a halfway decent mobile home, just live in it a few years, stick some money back, and when you've got some cash built up, go find a contractor that deals in those sort of things."

Josh shrugged. "I don't know how you'd go about that."

"Well," Phil said, as they passed Busted Axle Road on their way to Warsaw, "You'll have the time to find out. What ever happened on the ten-dog deal, anyway?"

They talked about dogs for a while, and gradually, the subject shifted over to Phil's travels. He'd had a lot of adventures, around the world, and his stories were always good. The miles to Warsaw flew by, much faster than they did on K-Pit. "There's one we ought to stop and look at," Phil said, pointing at a mobile home along the side of the road. It too was sitting unsteadly on wheels, with a "For Sale" sign on it. The railroad tracks were out of sight here, and Josh hadn't seen it.

"Let's go look at the other one, first." Josh suggested.

"Better than that, let's just drive around town a little first," Phil replied. "If there's two, there might be more."

A quick pass through town didn't reveal any more, but a stop to look at the community bulletin board at the grocery store told of yet another one. "We ought to be able to find something here," Phil said. "If there's this many, the prices might be pretty decent."

The first place they went was the one Josh had seen by the tracks. The owner was home, and Phil and Josh checked it over, while the owner went to get a ladder so they could climb inside. The interior looked pretty beat-up to Josh; there were some broken windows, and some drawers were missing. Phil went right to the bathroom and looked it over, frowning. He bounced around on the floor a bit, and gave a big shake of the head to Josh. They walked back down the narrow hall, stopping in the rooms along the way; Phil opened doors, giving things a once-over. Finally, they went back out to the living room, and climbed down the ladder. Once back on the ground, Josh asked, "What have you got to have for it?"

"I'd take a thousand," the owner said.

Josh glanced at Phil; he looked pretty negative. "Look, I want to look around a bit," he said. "This is the first place I've been. Give me a couple days."

Back in the truck, Josh said, "All right, what did you see that I didn't?"

"It'd do, I suppose, if we can't find something better," Phil said. "The big thing is that the bathroom floor is starting to rot. That's the first thing you have to look for. We had to throw a piece of plywood on Brandy's just to be able to use the john. They build these things, get the flooring down, then put the walls in over the flooring, so it'd be a bitch to have to tear the floorboards up and replace them. Besides that, it's only got a 15-amp breaker panel, which is cutting it pretty tight. On top of that, the furnace is pretty old. There are usually only two kinds you see in mobile homes, and one of them, the heat exchanger goes out after about ten or fifteen years, and you're out fifteen hundred bucks for a new furnace. That one has to be getting due."

"Jeez, I'm glad I brought you along," Josh said, shaking his head. "All I saw was the busted glass and the missing drawers, and the scratches and dents."

"Really cosmetic stuff. It'd take a couple hundred buck to fix the worst part of it," Phil said. "I didn't see any storm windows, either. You'd expect them to be in a closet, or something. You about have to have them unless you want your heating bill to get crazy, and they're not cheap. These things don't have much insulation, so it's going to be bad enough as it is."

The second mobile home, the one they'd seen the ad for on the grocery store bulletin board, was sitting on blocks out beyond the north side of town. No one was home, but a quick walk around it left Phil looking pretty negative, and Josh thought he could see why. Phil confirmed it: "No axles," he said. "You'd have to hire someone to move it, and it might cost more to move it than it would to buy it in the first place."