Page 7 of Working for the Mountain Man

Elsie looks up and finds me watching her.

"The SB-1 column," she says. "Three entries don't have corresponding photos. Are they on the tablets or somewhere else?"

"Third tablet," I say, pointing to the one that’s sitting on my desk. "There's a folder called August, it should be in there."

She reaches for it and I go back to my work.

She’s temporary.

I just need to remember that for the next twenty-two days.

Chapter 3

Elsie

The south bridge file looks like a raccoon broke into a government office and tried to file its own taxes. I’ve been staring at it for forty minutes and that’s still the most accurate description I can produce.

There are photos on two tablets, a spreadsheet that was clearly built by someone who thinks columns are optional, a repair log that references sections of bridge that are not labelled anywhere in the photos, and a manila folder of receipts that have been sorted by a system I’ve never seen before.

I open my notebook and start a fresh column. I’ve organized worse. This is just photos, bridge reports, and a spreadsheet that seems like it was made back in the stone ages, but I can do this.

I start with the photos because the photos have timestamps. I pull the tablets toward me, open the camera rolls, and begin going through them one by one, cross-referencing each one against the SB-1 column in the spreadsheet. There are two hundred and seventeen photos, only forty-six of them are labelled.

The folder called "maybe bridge" contains thirty-one photos of what does appear to be a bridge, alongside three photos of someone's lunch and one extremely blurry shot of the sky.

I write:who named this folder, and why are they still employedin my notebook, and then cross it out because I’m being a professional and that was mean.

"The SB-2 entries," I say when Hugo comes back through the door with a radio in his hand, and mud on his boots. "Are those the same bridge or a different one?"

"Different section," he says. "South deck is SB-1. The guardrail damage and shoulder work is SB-2."

"Are the photos separated by section anywhere?"

"No."

"Great." I write it down. "Helpful system."

"It worked."

"Hugo, there’s a folder called ‘maybe bridge.’"

He’s quiet for a second. "Corey named that one."

"I'm going to pretend that explains it."

"It does."

"No." I look at him over the tablet. "It absolutely does not."

He almost smiles again; it’s just a slight shift at the corner of his mouth before it disappears. But I see it and I feel stupidly, disproportionately victorious about it.

I go back to the tablets, and he goes back to whatever it is he does when he’s not standing in the office making my concentration worse.

We develop a rhythm quickly, which I didn’t expect. Hugo is in and out every twenty minutes. Someone needs him for the aggregate delivery on the upper ridge, or someone calls about anicy access road on the north side of town, there’s an issue with a retaining wall report that needs his sign-off before it goes to City Hall, Hank Mullins calls twice about crew scheduling, and a man named Darnell puts his head in to ask about the south shoulder gravel assessment. Hugo answers all of it, all in short sentences.

He gives instructions and people follow them without arguing, not because they’re afraid of him but because it’s obvious he knows what he’s talking about. When Darnell asks about the shoulder, Hugo tells him exactly which section, exactly how much material, and then asks if the drainage channel is clear. Darnell says mostly, and Hugo tells him to check it properly before he signs-off. That’s the whole conversation, it took about thirty seconds, and everything was handled.

I watch him do this four times before I understand something; he doesn't talk much because everyone else is always asking him for something. Every time he walks in here, someone needs a piece of him, every call is a problem to fix, and every crew member is waiting on his answer before they can move forward. He’s not grumpy because he enjoys being difficult, he’s grumpy because he’s carrying a lot and he’s been carrying it for a long time.