One Man's Opus (Book 3): Opus Adventure Page 13

  “I think there’s some of those tire shops that do more than tires and oil changes. I can’t think of the name, but it’s right up the road if you’re headed north.”

  “We are, thank you,” she said gratefully.

  “Don’t you worry ‘bout this storm none. No way we’d get hit again so soon after the last one,” he said, pointing at her. “And you, sir, keep your momma safe.”

  Owen crossed his arms and turned his head to the side, his skin turning a light shade of pink. Tina chuckled and the man made a face at Owen, sticking his tongue out. A smile crept over Owen’s face, and he snickered.

  “They still have a lot of water?” Tina asked.

  “Better hurry,” he told her and gave her a wave.

  Tina found the water aisle full of people. It wasn’t a panic yet, but six or seven carts in that small of a space where soccer moms were picking cases of water up two at a time… Tina walked over to the section that hadn’t been touched as much. The full one-gallon jugs. The store was almost out of the smaller bottled water, but the jugs were starting to go fast also. Tina knew Rick’s van held a ton of coolant, because his oil change took twice as much oil as her truck did, and the motor was almost as obscenely big as the one in the motorhome that had brought them together.

  She smiled at the memory and how he’d won her heart over that day when Opus and Rick had cleared the counter to stop the robber. That Superman punch hadn’t been a pretty thing to watch, but Rick had landed it solidly enough to stun the man so Opus could finish his job.

  “Dora?” Owen asked hopefully, pointing.

  Tina snickered, she saw that he’d seen some theme juice boxes, with Dora The Explorer on them. She snagged a carton of those, then filled her cart up with water.

  “One more thing we have to get. Hopefully your dad has everything he needs to fix the van.”

  “Owie go bubye?” he asked, his voice small.

  “Yes, dear,” she said softly.

  His face scrunched up in a frown and his lower lip quivered.

  “You’re going bubye with me and Daddy, we’re going to be with you. We’re going on a car ride.”

  “Outside?” he asked hopefully.

  “Yes, outside, then a car ride.”

  “Alright!” he said, slapping her hand in a one-man high five down low.

  Tina grinned, realizing the crisis was averted. Now to find the automotive section.

  21

  Rick

  I knew what that mark was as soon as I saw it for the first time. I opened the windows in the van all the way around and then the side doors. I gave all the dogs the command to stay, but Ophelia didn't listen to that and insisted on being right next to me. I'd gotten the van moved, and while Tina was inside I was digging through my milk crate of miscellaneous junk we kept on hand for the van. I now kept an extra battery behind the seat, not wanting a repeat of what had happened in Moab. But behind that was the milk crate, and I pulled it out and set it down on the concrete so I could see into it better. An extra serpentine belt, few quarts of oil, a gallon of antifreeze which I was about to use, some various hand tools, like the wrench I’d bought just for changing in a serpentine belt was there. Digging toward the bottom though, I finally found a small bottle of Bars Leak. I got that out and walked around to the front and cracked open the hood.

  Either at the hardware store or at Joe's Towing, somebody had stuck a screwdriver into my radiator. I was sure of it, and it left me feeling really uneasy. Ophelia rubbed her left ear against my leg as I propped the hood up and slowly released the pressure on the radiator. I knew I could've poured it directly into the overflow tank and it would've gotten sucked into the radiator, but it was running hot and the overflow tank was the first place that was going to bubble over. I'd rather put the Bars Leak right in the radiator and see if I could do anything to get it stopped long enough to get to an auto parts store or somewhere to fix the van.

  My one-ton Dodge held something like seven and a half, or eight quarts of oil and a couple gallons of antifreeze. After putting in the Bars Leak I put most of the antifreeze in and then put the cap on.

  “Ophelia, go get in the front seat,” I told my dog.

  She listened and I walked around the driver's side and got in and started up the van. I got out and walked around the front. With the running van and a semi-pressurized system, the leak in the front started spurting. I cursed myself, and took the cap off of the antifreeze and then took the cap off the radiator again taking the extra pressure off. I had to give it enough time for the Bars Leak to work. Most of the damage had been done in the cooling fins, and I was hoping that the actual part where it was leaking could be closed off with just the Bars Leak. As long as I was able to keep adding fluid in a circulation through the van faster than it leaked out, I could, in theory, do this until I ran out of either liquid to put in or—

  “Hey, help a girl unload?” Tina called.

  “Dayee, we have wawa!” Owen said cheerfully.

  I heard a scramble of claws and three dogs met her at the front of the van, the big doofus’s tripping over each other in excitement.

  Owen was still sitting in the front seat of the shopping cart, and there were ten gallons of water in the cart, along with some juice boxes with a cartoon character I loathed. I could see something else, but the label was turned away. I had a pretty good idea what it was, and I silently thanked the Lord again for bringing her into my life.

  “I didn't even hear you coming up,” I told her, placing a hand over my heart.

  “Well I hope I didn't scare you,” she said and gave me a smile.

  “Just a little bit,” I told her, “I didn't hear you sneaking up on me.”

  “Are we gonna be drinking this, or putting it in the radiator?” Tina asked.

  “For right now, I'm gonna keep putting it in the radiator I think.”

  She pulled out another gallon of antifreeze. “And I thought you might need this,” she said. “How bad is it?”

  I looked back at the hole in the radiator, and the leaking fluid seemed to be slowing down.

  “I poured in a bottle of Bars Leak and prayed it plugged the hole up enough for us to get back on the road again. Can you get the furry goofballs in the side doors so we’re all out of the road?” I asked her, “And then peek in the driver side door and see if the engine’s running hot or if it's okay?”

  Tina nodded and gave a command in German. All three dogs took off and Owen laughed, clapping his hands together in delight. He mush mouthed something that sounded oddly like a command, and the dogs seemed to freeze and Tina turned her head sideways, cocked. He’d gotten it mostly right. I shivered, despite the heat and humidity. Thunder cracked overhead, making us all wince. Soon. The weather promised it was going to get ugly soon.

  “Are we ready to go?” I asked Tina.

  “Yup, everyone's all buckled in, and the furry kids are sitting in their own spots for once,” Tina told me, looking around.

  The Bars Leak seemed to have worked, but traffic had doubled in the time we’d been pulled over. The inside of the van was explosively hot, so it was with a bit of nervousness that I got out on the main road and merged into traffic, slowly heading north as I watched the temperature gauge. I kept the news on constantly, and Tina sat next to Owen, but was giving me news and updates on traffic conditions. We weren't on the road for more than ten minutes when the announcement came that the governor was going to order an evacuation. We’d already figured that, especially the way businesses were starting to shut down and people were getting on the road.

  I had never been in a hurricane before, but seeing what the last one had done to the area, people were scurrying about as fast as they could. Because we were going so slow, we were able to see some of the residential areas off the main road, and homeowners were starting to board up their windows and doors. It was probably a process that all Floridians had gone through at some point, but it was something I'd only seen on the news. Until now.

  �
�From what I'm seeing on the news,” Tina told me without looking up, “traffic's getting snarled up ahead already.”

  “That's the way it looks for me too,” I told her. “Any luck on finding an automotive parts store or someplace to get the van looked at?”

  “There should be a Belle Tire up here on the right.”

  I found it about half a mile up on the right. Inch by inch, foot by foot, we crept forward. I turned the air conditioning off as it was blowing hot air in the van. Tina looked up at me sharply for a moment, but then nodded as she realized the van was starting to run hot again.

  “Daddy, Owwie hot,” my son called from the backseat.

  “I know, buddy, we’ll be pulled over here in another minute and I'll turn on the air-conditioning,” I said over my shoulder.

  “Rick,” Tina said to me, “how bad is the temp getting?”

  “We're over the three quarter way point right now, we're just starting to creep into the red zone. If traffic doesn't pick up—"

  The car in front of me swerved hard to the left, cutting off someone in the middle lane. I heard a crunch as the front end of the car that was getting cut off hit the tail lights of the car that was going over. I had already steered to the right and touched my brakes hard. I wasn't far from the Belle Tire, so I pulled into a parking lot. Another flash of thunder almost distracted me from the turn, but I couldn’t worry now. Traffic was going to come to an absolute crawl with that fender bender, and I was overheating.

  “We're not there yet,” Tina told me. “Is it getting too hot?” Her head was sideways, looking at the wreck that had happened just slightly south of us.

  “I want to add a little water. Hold on, I'll park under the shade here,” I said, noting some trees at the edge of the parking lot, though it wasn’t a lot shadier than it was a second ago as darker clouds blew across the sun.

  I’d pulled the van into a shopping mall parking lot. Calling it a shopping mall was being generous to be honest, because it was a glorified mini-mall with old beat up cars lining the front spaces near cutesy little boutiques. I got out after I turned off the van and walked to the back. I opened the back door only to have Sarge lick me in the face.

  “Get off me,” I scolded him. “I just want to do this and get out of the mugginess.”

  Sarge barked happily, his tail wagging his entire body. I got the two jugs of antifreeze out and headed toward the front of the van. Tina had already slid into my seat and was pulling the hood release. I had forgotten to do that; score one for the prepper’s wife. I set the jugs down and then slowly cracked open the radiator cap, using my shirt to keep from burning my hand.

  “Be careful,” Tina called from my open window.

  Steam poured out of the open radiator.

  The sickly sweet smell of coolant hung in the air, and there was a puddle growing larger at my feet. I’d taken a peek at the hole, and whatever the Bar Leak had done it had been temporary. Without spilling too much, I poured the rest of the first jug into the radiator. I looked at the second jug that Tina had bought. It was the premix, 50/50 coolant and water. It was the universal kind, which my van wasn't picky about anyway. I started pouring that in, wishing I'd gotten my funnel out. I splashed some of the second gallon around, but I got it all in there. I could see there was at least an inch of space below the opening where the radiator cap was.

  “Fire it up,” I called to Tina.

  “Got it, boss,” she called back, with Owen yelling something unintelligible that ended in giggles.

  The van fired up, and although the radiator was leaking, it wasn't leaking as hard as it had been before. I put the cap on, but not all the way. I wasn't going to pressurize the system until I had a chance to get the van looked at. I figured that was going to give me more time to get down the road.

  I hurried up and got in the van, pushing Sarge out of the way as gently as I could. I could see Belle Tire, but the parking lots did not meet. I pulled out into traffic and crossed all my fingers and toes as I inched forward slowly.

  “Dayee, we go bye?” Owen asked from the backseat.

  “Yeah buddy, we're about to go bye-bye.”

  “You let your daddy concentrate on driving,” Tina said, turning to face the little man.

  Ophelia pushed past Sarge in the space between the front seats and she put her head on my right leg. If I'd been driving a stick shift this wouldn't have been possible, but she must have been feeling my anxiety. I put my hand on her head and started scratching her ears. I saw in the rearview mirror Opus watching me, his big brown eyes calm and steady. Behind me where the accident had happened, cars were just now starting to move as both vehicles were finally able to pull into the parking lot I had just vacated.

  It took two minutes of watching the temperature gauge start climbing into the hot zone again before I was able to pull into the tire shop.

  “I've got the baby and the dogs,” Tina said. “I'm going to go give them a quick walk.”

  “Sounds good to me, I'm going to go inside and see what they can do.

  The news wasn't good. Tina took all three dogs on leashes and put on Owen’s dinosaur backpack. For all intents and purposes he was on a leash himself, and they roamed around the grassy area on the back of the tire place. I gritted my teeth at the news. They could order the part in, but it wouldn't be in until tomorrow, right when this area was about to get busy with the evacuation. That was when I decided to change tactics.

  “If you can get me the part,” I told the sales manager, “I can put it in myself. If you can get me the part and if someone's willing to stay and help me put it in or install it for me, I'll make sure they're fairly compensated.”

  “That doesn't leave us much time to do our own evacuation. As we saw with the last big hurricane to have an evacuation order isn't just a polite suggestion, it's an order.”

  “What about if I buy a plane ticket out of here for whoever sticks around?”

  The sales manager hesitated for a moment, then looked at me. “Why can't you just fly back?”

  “Because I've got three German Shepherds, my wife, and a baby. I could get the humans on the plane easily enough, but I haven't been able to find any airline that's able to take the dogs on short notice like this. I can't leave them behind, they’re family too,” I said, looking outside, Pat following my gaze.

  Tina had been checking options while the mechanics here had looked at it. The hole was too big for a simple soldering patch. I wasn’t an expert on this by any means, but I thought the radiator was toast. The screwdriver had pushed almost entirely through the radiator. I hadn’t had a chance to tell Tina my suspicions and made a mental note to make sure I did that as soon as I could.

  “You know, I don't know if this will help, but there is a junkyard not too far from here. If you're willing to do the install yourself... We're not allowed to put in parts like that, warranty issues and liability reasons. In theory a person could buy a radiator, and have it back here in a couple hours. Maybe less if the part is already pulled off the vehicle…”

  “Do you happen to have the phone number of the salvage yard?” I asked him.

  He pulled out his cell phone, hit a couple of buttons, and made a call.

  “Hey, George, this is Patrick down here... Yeah hey, I need a radiator for a 97 Dodge Ram van. Yeah, the big one-ton. Yeah, can you pull one out? Oh come on... Get one of the boys to go pull it real quick, I'm sending someone over. I'd consider it a personal favor.”

  “Tell him I'll pay extra if he has it out by the time I get an Uber over there,” I interrupted.

  “You hear that? Guy’s willing to pay extra if you go yank it right now. Uh huh, I hear you. Yeah, if you can get on that; appreciate it. I'll either flag a taxi for him or call him an Uber or something. Yeah, he's a writer guy that my wife likes to read—"

  My mouth dropped open and I started chuckling. I listened to the rest of the conversation while pulling out my own cell phone to download the Uber app. Despite being familiar with it I'd n
ever used it myself. One more thing Annette had beaten me to try first.

  “I'll just call you a cab,” the sales manager said.

  I held my hand out. “I really appreciate this,” I told him as we shook.

  “You got tools?” he asked me.

  “I should,” I told him.

  He was already dialing another phone number and asked for a customer pickup and gave the address.

  “So your wife reads my books?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, she says you've really changed the genre. I tried to read one of them once. Wasn't for me, but the girls seem to get worked up about it. So I keep buying them for her. Might need you to sign a couple for me to give to her.”

  I chuckled, “Sure thing and thanks; it helps keep me rolling... Unless we're under an evacuation order and someone sticks a screwdriver through my radiator.”

  “I was going to ask you about that, you know where it happened?”

  “Yeah, I think it happened at Joe's Towing. I was buying gas and I don't want to make accusations but... I wasn't leaking radiator fluid until after I'd been there.”

  “There's a couple of people who work for Joe that have... Just be careful,” he finished, typing something up on his computer.

  “I better get out there and let Tina know. Are they okay coming in here and cooling down?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, and tell her feel free to bring the dogs too, as long as they are well-behaved.”

  Little did he know.

  22

  Tina & Opus

  Opus could smell the ozone in the air. He didn’t know what that word meant, but it was the funny tingly smell after lightning. Instead of a huge storm, there seemed to be a lot of wind. He let out a low growl, and Sarge barreled up to him. Opus made a sneezing sound and then rubbed his head on the baby’s shoulder. Sarge sat down, his head cocked.

  Ophelia watched her mate, but she was pacing nervously, looking at the building that the human Rick had gone into. She felt an overwhelming need to make sure he didn’t get himself into trouble. Opus knew that the human Rick was good at finding trouble, but he seemed to come out ok. Especially when he had Opus’s entire family taking care of him and his.