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By all rights, Prentice should have known. I mean, anytime you see two lads with new pick-ups and taking Caribbean cruises, you should realize they aren't the mountain hicks they let on to be. But maybe the man didn't learn this until later. Maybe, but I think it was just plain arrogance that made him think he could get the better of them.
Prentice Sloan blew into the little town of Falling Rock like a rooster invading a new hen house. The town's major attraction for summer visitors is its location at the head of a river gorge. It was a good spot to launch a white water rafting trip, and quite an industry had grown up around this.
Sloan was experienced on fast water, and it was natural that he try his hand on the river. He made out well. Not great, but adequate. He never had to be rescued, and he didn't drown. Quite a few people did each year, so that's more of an accomplishment than it sounds.
Prentice Sloan's trouble that he had to let the people know how good he was. He would parade about the streets in his wet suit top after making a run so everybody would see what an athlete he was. What the people actually saw was a man making a fool of himself, and the more he told of his accomplishments back in Michigan, the more they smirked behind his back.
Sloan's business back home had been in real estate investments, and this seemed like a prime area to make a killing. Obviously property values were lower here, but with the recreational opportunities they were sure to rise. The fellows he had met seemed more anxious to talk about calling turkeys than making money. He was sure he would make a killing off this bunch of rubes.
When Prentice met Dirk and Call Walsh, he figured he had it made. They seemed to be simple mountain boys struggling to make a living. Why, Call even told him that his name came from his ability to call turkeys.
The Walsh brothers allowed as how they were in such a dry spell that they might have to sell their prized corner lot. It was a little small, but the view was fabulous, and they would consider selling it to him for roughly four times the going market value.
Sloan didn't hesitate. He snapped it up; sure he had been given a license to steal. There was the small matter of a decrepit house trailer on the property, but the brothers were feeling so generous that they offered to have it removed at a cost of fifteen hundred dollars. What they actually did was to hook onto it with a tractor, drag it to their back lot; then burn it and sell the scrap metal that remained to a dealer for a couple hundred more dollars.
With the trailer removed, Sloan hurried to have a pre-fab delivered and hooked to the existing septic system. Then he shopped around for someone to build a garage.
He didn't want just any old garage. He wanted one three bays wide and with a gym room. It had to have big lights and heat. He was in a hurry and didn't bother to check up on any required permits for this activity. Heck, why would a tiny burg like this have any building codes? It seemed doubtful if anybody in town would even know what a code was. He turned out to be wrong, but that was only one of a long list of mistakes.
The local contractors all wanted to work on a contract, and Prentice figured it was a good time to start cutting corners. Dirk and Call were available and didn't care about a contract. An hourly wage was fine with them as long as the pay came through in cash. As they told him this, they were cleaning their turkey guns, and Prentice made a mental note that it would be a bad idea to try and stiff them.
Sloan found a simple way to save on foundation work. He bought an old Case backhoe and went at it himself. For the first time, the Walsh brothers balked on him. That ground needed a lot of gravel, and it needed to be tamped down. The whole lot was on a side hill and if the works slid there would be hell to pay.
Prentice wouldn't listen. He graded the loose dirt to where it looked right to him and then he found a local to pour the concrete. This man also advised against pouring on such a poor base, but he did it anyway. Now Dirk and Call erected his garage, and he figured he was in fine shape.
Of course there was the matter of the two brother's wages. He had eschewed a contract and pretty much forced them into working for an hourly wage. It may be remembered that this deal was agreed upon while they were holding shotguns. So when the wages he paid were obviously twice what he would have had to cover with anyone else, he didn't really care to make an issue of it.
Neither did Dirk nor Call. After he had been gone for an hour every morning, they would break out the barbecue and the beer and party the day away until it was time for him to return. At that time they would bolt on a couple more pieces of steel to show him what progress they had made during the day.
Below this mess was a neighbor that was long on patience but realized an ever-present danger when he saw it. This man politely asked Prentice on more than one occasion to do something about all that loose dirt overhanging his yard before it landed there. Sloan ignored him.
Just as politely the man then asked a county commissioner if there was any simple recourse to be taken. He didn't want to cause anybody trouble, but he didn't want his family crushed either.
When the commissioner looked at the problem, he was fit to be tied. A check with the courthouse showed that no permits had been issued for any of this work. Even the original septic tank was in violation because it had not been checked for function.
Prentice tried to lie his way out of it, and this was definitely not the thing to do with these people. If he had worked with them, a remedy that suited everybody could have been reached. Sloan refused to stoop so low, and consequently the sheriff showed up the next day with a simple directive. The garage had to go, and the earthwork had to be restored to its former contours. If this were not accomplished in one week, the fine would be a thousand dollars a day until compliance was met.
With such a deadline, he had only one place to turn.
“Sure thing,” answered Call. We'll take it down for just half the price you paid to put it up. As Sloan's face began to change color like that of a gobbler on an early spring morning Call added, “And we keep the dismantled building.”
Prentice Sloan lowered his head and nodded his agreement, then slowly drove away.
“So what do you think, Call, another cruise?”
“Nah, I'm getting the urge to gamble. How about a week in Vegas?”
“You got it brother. Let's tear this beast down, then tell the wives to pack.”
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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