Dude McDude's Arc

Chapter 2 of 1

Morning sun beat down on the driftwood pile, but the sun alone would not save it. Dude pressed a hand to the nearest log. It gave under his palm, soft and cold. The wood was still soaked through. Moana had warned him. Damp driftwood rots, and rot would take his bar before he raised a single wall. He needed the wood dry, and he needed it fast. "Sun-drying takes weeks," Moana said. She crouched beside him and dug a thumbnail into a plank. It sank in. "You don't have weeks. Salt holds the water in. These logs will turn to mush first." Dude pushed up his shades. "Then I need heat. Real heat." Moana stood. She looked past the pile, toward the treeline. "There's a kiln up the slope. An old wood-fired one. Kai runs it." She said the name flat, like a stone she'd rather not step on. "He dries lumber for half the island. He'll help. For a price." They climbed the slope together. The kiln squatted at the top, wide and heat-darkened, its mouth glowing orange. A big man leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, tattoos wrapping both. Blue-tinted glasses caught the fire. He watched them come without moving. "Moana," he said. He didn't look at her long. His eyes landed on Dude. "And the mainlander with the wet wood. Word travels." "Kai," Moana said. "He needs the kiln." Kai pushed off the doorframe. He walked to the fire's edge and spat. "Everybody needs the kiln. It runs on wood I cut and haul myself." He looked Dude up and down, the flip-flops, the Hawaiian shirt. "What've you got to trade?" Dude had no money. He had a dream and a pile of soaked logs. "I'll cut your fuel wood," he said. "A week of it. You dry my load, I stock your kiln." Kai laughed once, short. "You? You'll last a day." But he tilted his head, thinking. "Two weeks of fuel. And you haul it up this slope yourself." Dude stuck out his hand. "Deal." They shook. Kai's grip could crush stone. They worked the rest of the day. Dude and Moana dragged load after load up the slope. Kai stacked the logs inside the kiln, tight and even, and fed the fire until the mouth roared white. Heat rolled off the old walls. By dusk the last log went in. Steam hissed from the vents. The water was leaving the wood at last. Kai wiped his hands and shut the iron door. "Come back in three days," he said. "Then we'll see if your bar lives or burns." Dude walked back down the slope, sweat drying on his neck. His wood was safe from rot now. But he owed Kai two weeks of hard labor, and he had no idea yet how heat and salt would leave his driftwood when the fire went cold.