L Akers - Shoot Like a Girl

Puck picked them up and glanced through them. He handed one to Grayson. “This one is a tractor with a wagon.”

“Yeah, I see that. Is there some reason you drew a picture of a tractor with a wagon?”

“No. I just felt like it.”

“When did you draw—nevermind.” It was obvious the picture had been drawn before the girls arrived, as Puck had been with them since the wagon had brought the women home.

He pointed at the picture of the well bucket and hole in the ground. “What about this one? Is this me and you?”

Puck shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not anybody. Just a picture I drew, GrayMan.”

“When did you draw it? Was it before or after you dropped my Amish well-bucket down the well and lost it forever?”

“Before.”

“So you knew you were going to drop the bucket? Or did you drop the bucket because of the picture?”

“No.”

Grayson raised an eyebrow. “No? No what ? You knew… or you dropped it because that’s what you’d drawn on the picture?” he asked grumpily.

Puck’s chin wrinkled and his lip stuck out again. “I don’t know,” he whispered quietly. “I didn’t know anything.”

Ozzie crawled up on the bed and protectively laid his head on Puck’s chest, staring into the boy’s face with his big brown eyes.

Graysie popped her head into the room, looking from Puck to her father. “What’s going on, Daddy?”

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing,” Graysie said, using his own overused line against him. “Puck looks upset.” She walked over and flopped down on the end of the bed. “You want to color something for me, Puck?” she asked, giving him a big smile.

Obviously, they’d made up.

Puck smiled back. “Sure.”

“No!” Grayson snapped. He stood up and snatched the crayons and paper away from Puck. “I don’t want you drawing Graysie anything.”

“Daddy! What the heck?” Graysie asked in astonishment. “Give those back to him. He’s bored.”

“Watch it, Graysie. You’re getting a little too big for your britches, girl.”

Grayson bulled up, knowing his daughter was right; he looked ridiculous. What he was thinking was ridiculous. No one could draw something into happening. And he didn’t believe in all that hocus pocus psychic ability bullshit that Jake had brought up on the way home, either.

It’s all just a big coincidence.

He blew out a frustrated breath and dumped the stuff back onto the bed. “Fine. But don’t draw any pictures of Graysie. Or Olivia.” He looked at his dog. “Or Ozzie. Just don’t draw any pictures of anyone . Draw some flowers. Or a rainbow.”

He walked around the bed to leave. “Hell, draw me a good tank of gas that’ll run something…” he mumbled as he walked out the door, followed by looks of confusion from his daughter.

Grayson stomped outside to find Jake driving nails into the wooden structure holding up the IBC water tote outside the bathroom window. They’d finished that project a few hours before the women had arrived home, hoping to at least provide them with a cold shower. Water was gravity fed from the tote, through the bathroom window with a hose pipe, and down into the shower.

But now Jake had a better plan.

“Jake, you ready to do this water thing?”

Jake pulled a bandana out of his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. He tied it up around his forehead. “Almost done now.”

“Really? You figured it out that fast?”

Jake chuckled. “It’s not rocket science. The basic rules of plumbing are hot on the left, cold on the right, and shit won’t run uphill.”

Grayson stared at him somberly. He wasn’t in the mood for kidding around after his conversation with Puck.

Jake cleared his throat. “We still have to attach the hand pump to the wellhead. That’ll take a while, but the rest is nearly done. After I found the hand-pump that you couldn’t find—which, by the way, was underneath Olivia and Emma’s bugout bags that they left behind when they went on their trip—I just laid that beside the wellhead for now. We’ll hook that up next. But I ran a hose from the hand pump, straight to the IBC water tote.”

He pointed at a faucet on the side of water tote. “Here, I put on a splitter faucet. I ran a short hose from one side of the splitter to the RV Freshwater pump we pulled out of Mama Dee’s camper, and then hooked that to the main water supply line to the house.”

Grayson’s eyes widened. “You did all that already? Will that get us water pressure in the bathroom then?”

Jake handed Grayson the hammer. “Hold this… and no, not just the bathroom. It’ll pressurize the whole house. I hooked the main hot water supply line to that Instant-On propane water heater you had stashed in the shipping container. It’ll ignite off D batteries and run off propane.”

He drove a nail into the board. “Now we’ve got hot water—or we will have as soon as I finish this shelf to hold the 12V battery that runs the RV pump. Then we need to hook up the hand pump to the wellhead, and hook up the propane bottle to the Instant-On Heater.”

Grayson’s eyes glazed over, trying to follow Jake’s explanation. “Just tell me this… we’ll have hot water for the ladies, and lots of it, right?”

“Right.” Jake held a short two by four in place and took the hammer back, pounding it in place. “Well, we’ll have an unlimited supply based on whatever propane we have on hand—which I know is a lot. But it won’t last forever. We need to use it sparingly. You can use the other side of the splitter faucet for hooking up a hose to water the garden.”

Grayson finally smiled. “You’re a keeper, Jake.”

He watched Jake finish up the wooden shelf and set the 12V battery on it, flush against the side of the IBC tote. He scratched his head. “I’ve got plenty of D batteries, but what happens when that 12 volt runs out of juice?”

Jake rubbed his hands together. “Then we let Old Ruby pull her weight. She likes to have a job.” Jake had a habit of speaking about his ’57 Chevy Truck as though she were a real woman. He loved that truck. “We just hook jumper cables to her, connect them to the battery, and let her alternator charge it.”

Grayson’s heart fell. “Well then we won’t have hot water for long. We’re almost out of gas now. Ruby can’t run without fuel. How much does she have in her?”

Jake slapped Grayson in the shoulder. “Fixed that too, brutha. Took ten minutes. I did that this morning before we left for Puck’s house.”

Grayson’s eyes were incredulous. “You fixed bad gas? How?”

“Old mechanic’s trick, but don’t get too excited. I couldn’t fix the big tank—yet. You had some old gas in smaller containers in the barn, and I was able to dig up enough mothballs and Seafoam to at least fix that. We’ll get a few of tanks of gas out of it.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No. For real, dude. But don’t ever try that yourself. The newer mothballs won’t work. I went through your shipping container and found some really old ones on the floor, under the shelves. I assume they were in there when you bought it? I didn’t need many. The gas really wasn’t all the way bad. It smells bad, and it might not run anything newer, but it should Ruby just fine. Especially with the additives in it now. If we find more old mothballs and Seafoam—and a bunch of it—we might be able to fix up the big tank, too.”

“That’s great! So, back to this. We just need to install the hand pump on the wellhead and we’re ready to go?”