The next day was Independence Day, and Julie celebrated by announcing, “I’m going to build a tree house in the front yard and live in it.” She was not asking permission, but reporting the news. Julie was extremely self-assured, as if her way was the only way that made sense, and she often became impatient when others didn’t acknowledge she was right. She was relentless and confrontational in defending her opinions. She was fun to hang out with when they were all young and united in defense against a tyrant father, but she grew more distant and stubborn as she got older. Marty and Susie had learned not to argue with her, but just watch and take notes about how to handle parents.
“Can I have your room?” Susie asked immediately.
“A tree house?” Their mom groaned, nursing a hangover at the kitchen table while Rabbit rustled up some grub.
Julie launched into an exacting description of her plans, while Ron sat and nodded in taciturn agreement. (He knew what was good for him.) They were going to build a raised platform in the front yard, using the grove where redwoods grew straight like table legs. She proudly displayed the plans she had drawn. It would have a trap door, and a stereo, and a little refrigerator she had salvaged from work.
“Where ya gonna get power from?” Jimbo asked, stroking his beard thoughtfully.
Ron started to answer, but Julie interrupted him. “We’ll string an extension cord through the trees,” she said confidently.
“How are you going to support the weight?” Jack wondered aloud, from where he was peeling potatoes.
“We don’t need to build walls or a roof, because it’s summertime,” she answered, her tone growing irritated at the questioning of her plans. “Just a platform.”
“Well, all right, just don’t start a fire,” Marge concluded impertinently, as if her permission were actually needed. She still behaved as if she was her daughter’s boss, but the delusion rarely had any effect on reality.
Julie and Ron borrowed Jack’s van to get some scrap lumber from the local barn where Manuka was staying until the corral was fixed up. The next day, while the beavers were sorting out their wood, Marty walked down to the other end of the property where Otter was setting up his teepee. The only ones he’d ever seen before were at summer camp, and a tourist trap near the Four Corners in Navajo country (which was ironic because the pueblo Indians didn’t live in teepees, and neither did the Inuit for that matter).
Marty found him scratching his belly, drinking a beer, and staring at a pile of canvas and poles in the clearing closest to the McAuliffes. Marty thought a joke would be a good place to start. “Why don’t you build an igloo instead?”
Otter harpooned him with his eye for a long moment. “Ain’t right to make fun of where a man comes from,” he said seriously, and Marty felt bad. He continued to gaze at the boy speculatively, as if sizing him up. “I might have to kick your rusty bucket.” Then he added with a wink, “Besides, the ice would melt. C’mon, help me with these poles.”
They laid all the poles in a parallel bunch. They were about ten feet long, and cut from skinny tree trunks. “Aspen works best, but I had to use alder,” Otter muttered to no one in particular, and tied the poles together about a foot below one end. Then they stood the whole bunch straight up in the clearing, and splayed out the poles with their feet. Sorting out the canvas pieces and tying them in place took longer, but soon they erected a reasonable facsimile of a teepee. Otter spread an old buffalo hide on the ground and laid down. “Home sweet home,” he grinned with considerable flair. Marty sat for a while and admired the lovely setting: a real teepee in a natural circle formed by redwood trees, and flowering undergrowth on the forest floor, and the creek rippling by. Then Otter started snoring, and the spell was broken. Marty left him to see how the tree house was coming along. It was a big day for building shelter!
Back at the cabin, Jimbo and Ron were securing the crossbeams that would support the platform that would be Julie’s new bedroom. The Big Sister was busy measuring and marking some old pieces of plywood. Marge and Rabbit sat on the deck, smoking and wearing sunglasses. Ron stopped to roll a cigarette from the old tobacco pouch he carried. He was tall and laconic, and looked a lot older than his 18 years. He was a senior at Drake, where Julie had met him in the auto shop. She enjoyed being the only girl working on cars in a room full of boys that wanted to help her. She had gotten her license a few weeks back, and was looking for the right car she could work on at school next year and get credits. Meanwhile, Ron let her drive his International wagon once in a while, when he was too wasted to keep it between the ditches himself.
The legal drinking age was 21 in California at the time, and pot wasn’t legal at all, but that didn’t stop anyone Marty knew from partaking in either; regardless of age. Youngsters like Susie and Tillie simply weren’t interested yet, but he enjoyed smoking pot if it was offered to him, and that was often. It smoothed over some of the scar tissue leftover from emotional shrapnel, and made him feel funnier and more creative. Beer and cigarettes he could do without. He wasn’t in the 8th grade yet, and was already what his friends back in the suburbs would call a “pothead.” His hair was getting long, and his clothes were becoming too small for him. His mom didn’t seem to care, and projected a liberal attitude of freedom and acceptance. She pretty much let her kids do whatever they wanted because it was easier than maintaining discipline. If her 16-year-old daughter wanted to shack up with an older guy in a tree house in the front yard, well, that was just “kids being kids,” as she used to say. She felt there was no way to prevent it, so it was better if it happened where she could control the collateral damage.
After getting the platform built, the guys started a fire to grill more meat, while Julie brought out her sleeping gear. Otter showed up with his battered old cowboy hat and redwood needles in his hair. He took Rabbit down to their teepee “to get the womenfolk situated,” as he put it, “Cause if the boss ain’t happy with the teepee, somebody’s gonna sleep with the dogs.” Later they came back with their arms around each other’s waist, so Marty guessed it worked out well. They were an odd couple, to be sure. She was over a head taller than him, even with his hat on. Her hips and hands were huge, and her shoulders sloped from stooping all her life to try and appear smaller.
“Well, did you approve?” Marge asked coyly.
“Oh-ho yes,” Rabbit replied with her customary seriousness. She had a deep, masculine voice with a chronic hoarseness from chain smoking. “There will be no ‘whomping stick’ tonight.” This was another of Otter’s expressions, used when he didn’t approve of something, such as, “I’m gonna take my whomping stick and put a dent in your rusty bucket,” or “That Nixon sumbitch, somebody oughta hit him upside his head with a whomping stick.”
Everyone was drinking beer, and Otter produced a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from somewhere, and the party picked up where it left off the night before. Jack would be returning to Yosemite the next morning, which was enough of an excuse for another party (as if one were ever needed). Marty put on some Aerosmith to crank up the energy level. This was better than fireworks, which would have been a disaster, since their yard was completely covered in paper-dry redwood needles.
“Walk this way! Walk this way! Walk this way…”
Otter howled from sheer exuberance, and performed a clumsy jig on the deck. “Eskimos can’t dance worth shit,” he said without apology, “But we sure know how to drink.” He howled again and coughed. Rabbit came out of the house with a big pan of mashed potatoes, and he scooped out a handful and stuffed it in his mouth. It oozed between his fingers and got stuck in his stringy mustache. Rabbit rolled her eyes, as if to say, “Here we go again,” and Otter just shrugged and burped loudly. “Tastes like whale blubber.”
Jack tried to take the bottle from him, but this only put his rusty bucket in jeopardy of meeting a whomping stick, so he left the Inuit alone. “I’ll kick all yer rusty buckets,” Otter drawled with mock belligerence, steadying himself on the back of a chair, fixing his bloodshot eye on them all at the same time, and loudly asserted, “This here’s the rusty bucket tribe.” To commemorate the christening of their woodland community, he performed an impromptu ceremonial pisik on the deck, chanting and stomping, until he came to the edge where he expected a railing to lean on… but forgot it hadn’t been built yet. He toppled into a nursery of baby redwoods, and groped for his hat.
“Welcome to the Rusty Bucket Ranch,” Marty laughed spontaneously, and the name stuck. From then on, that little cabin in the redwoods was named after an old Indian colloquialism for “ass.”