Bam Bam Rubble had split wood for this new town for two weeks, but he still had no ground of his own. He slept on a cot in the corner of a borrowed garage behind the dorm. His axe leaned by the door. Every night he fixed to find a plot. Every night the fires went cold, and he lay awake missing the warm fires of Bedrock, where neighbors stayed close and no one slept in a borrowed corner. At dawn he swung his legs off the cot. Tinker crouched over his buggy on the garage floor, tightening a bolt. Tinker had let Bam Bam sleep here after Bam Bam cleared the junk from the shed so Tinker could build. They were square that way. But a man can't stay square forever on another man's floor. "I need my own land," Bam Bam said. "A place to stand." Tinker didn't look up. "Then go stand on some." Elroy leaned in the doorway, arms crossed. The young pilot lived next door and had a fast eye for a gap. "East ridge," Elroy said. "Flat ground. No one's claimed it. First one to build a hearth owns it. That's the rule here." Bam Bam grabbed his axe. "Then I build today." "Others want it too," Elroy said. "Move now or lose it." The three hiked to the ridge. Bam Bam found a patch of level grass with gray stone scattered nearby. He drove his axe into the dirt to mark it. "Mine," he said. But marking wasn't building. The rule said hearth. So he worked. He hauled stone and stacked it. Tinker rolled rocks over by hand. Elroy fetched water and dry grass. By midday the stone walls rose. They cut poles and wove the grass into a roof. A small hut took shape, rough stone walls under a soft grass top, a chimney climbing one side. Two strangers crested the ridge, carrying their own tools, eyeing the flat ground. Then they saw the hut and the smoke rising from the chimney. They turned and went back down. Bam Bam stood in the doorway of his own hut. For the first time, the walls around him were his. "Come night," he said, "this fire stays lit." Tinker wiped his hands. "Nice roof. Won't last the first big wind, though." Elroy grinned. "He's right. Grass roof, open ridge. One storm and you're sleeping under stars." Bam Bam looked up at the woven grass. The wind already pulled at the edges. He had his land. He had his hut. But the ridge was bare and high, and the sky over SkyRock did not stay calm for long. He had traded a borrowed corner for a home he now had to keep standing.

The grass roof worried Bam Bam all week. Each night the wind tugged at it. In Bedrock, neighbors would have fixed it before dark, sharing the work and a warm fire after. Here, folks kept to their huts once the sun dropped. So Bam Bam decided to ask for help himself. He walked down from the ridge to find Tinker. He found Tinker in the garage, bent over his buggy with a wrench in hand. Tinker was the racer who'd helped build the hut. He didn't waste words. Bam Bam told him the grass roof wouldn't last a storm. Tinker set down the wrench. "Need wood. Need someone who shapes it." He thought a moment. "Jake's got the garage across town. He builds things right." They rode over in a strange car. The body was carved from logs, with wings like an old plane bolted to the sides. Bam Bam gripped the door as the town rolled past. The huts here sat far apart. No shared fires. No neighbors calling out. So different from the close rows of Bedrock. Jake worked under the hood of a car when they arrived. He was a mechanic, young but sure with his hands. He wiped them on a rag and listened while Bam Bam explained the roof. "Grass won't hold," Jake said. "You need planks. Cut, fit, nailed tight." He pulled a pencil from behind his ear and sketched on a scrap of wood. "Pitch the roof steep. Rain runs off. Wind slides over." Bam Bam stared. He knew stone and axe work. He didn't know wood joints. "I can split logs," he said. "I can't do this." "I'll show you," Jake said. "Once." They loaded planks into the log-bodied car and drove back to the ridge. Jake climbed up and marked each cut. Bam Bam hauled wood and held the beams. Tinker nailed. By late afternoon the grass was gone. A slanted wood roof covered the hut, boards overlapping like scales. Jake tested a beam with his weight. It held. "That'll beat a storm," he said. He climbed down and looked at the bare ridge around the hut. "Nice spot. But lonely up here." That word stuck in Bam Bam's chest. Lonely. He had land. He had a roof that would hold. But he stood alone on a high ridge while Jake and Tinker got ready to drive back to town. "Come eat," Bam Bam said. "I'll light the fire. Stay a while." Jake glanced at Tinker. Tinker shrugged. "Food's food." They stayed. Bam Bam lit the hearth, and for the first time the fire burned with company around it. But when the two climbed into the log car and drove off into the dark, the ridge went quiet again. His roof would stand. His home still had no neighbors. One warm fire wasn't a community. He needed others to settle near him, or his homestead would stay a lonely peak.

The storm hit the night after Jake left. Bam Bam watched the rain slide off his pitched roof while the wind howled. The boards held. But the empty ridge around him stayed dark and silent. A good roof wasn't a home. He needed people. The next morning he walked down to find Tinker, the young racer who'd helped build his hut. Tinker was in the garage, bent over his buggy, a wrench in his hand. He didn't look up. "Roof hold?" "It held," Bam Bam said. "But nobody's up there with me. Just me and the wind." Tinker set the wrench down. "So bring them up." Bam Bam frowned. "Why would they come? There's nothing on that ridge worth the climb." Tinker thought. "Give them a reason. People came to watch me run the buggy. Noise and fire pulls a crowd." He almost smiled. "I don't gather folks. I just go fast and they show up." He shrugged and picked the wrench back up. That stuck with Bam Bam. Back in Bedrock, the big fire pulled everyone close after dark. Here the fires went cold. So he would build a fire too big to ignore. He spent two days hauling stone and stacking logs on the ridge. He built a wide pit, taller than any hearth. On one side he set an iron grate so people could cook. When it was done, he lit it at dusk. Flames leapt higher than his hut. The glow spread across the whole ridge. Then he waited. The wind carried smoke down toward the scattered huts. Bam Bam stood by the grate and wondered if anyone would come at all. Elroy arrived first. He was the rocket pilot who'd helped raise the hut, fast on his feet and faster with words. He climbed the slope and stared at the blaze. "Saw this from my window," he said. "Whole ridge is orange." "Food's on the grate," Bam Bam said. "Stay." Tinker came next, carrying a drum of music under his arm. More followed, folks from the far huts who'd never climbed the ridge before. They came for the light and the smell of cooking meat. Bam Bam handed out food and kept the fire fed. By full dark, a dozen people sat around the grate. Elroy argued racing with Tinker. Strangers laughed and passed food. The ridge wasn't silent anymore. One old man set down his plate and looked around. "Good spot up here," he said. "Close to the quarry work. A man could build near this fire." Two others nodded. Bam Bam felt his chest go warm. He had his reason now. The fire was the pull. People didn't come for an empty ridge, but they came for a gathering place. And a gathering place could grow neighbors. The old man stayed late. Before he left, he pointed at a flat patch of ground downslope. "I'll stake there. Come spring." Bam Bam watched him go and knew his lonely ridge had just gained its first settler.