Stevie had battled through some rough spots, the death of Lucy being the worst, but he’d faced them up with sheer grit and determination, and the valley folk knowing his worth, marked him as a good and reliable worker, which meant he was rarely idle, and in the busy summer season he’d hardly a minute to call his own.
After Lucy went from him, Stevie openly preferred to work flat out, for by concentrating on other things, he’d no time to mope and mourn her passing.
“A problem is a solution waitin’ to happen,” he’d say, and today, true to form, this cataclysmic and spectacular natural disaster, bad as it was, wouldn’t make him sit down and give up, not for a while yet. Whatever was coming at him would find him on his feet, always moving and trying to do the best he could with what he had and the time left to do it in.
Stevie Ralston liked taking risks, he loved problems and puzzles, because experience had taught him that trouble invariably could be made to work to advantage, more times than not. The stakes Mother Earth had dumped on Life’s card table that morning were much too high, but Stevie had a trick or two up his sleeve, and when he played them, he planned to overcome the terrible odds stacked against him.
Cataclysm’s Day: First Book of The Gatherers Trilogy.
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