Moonlight in the Everglades Finale: Bringing It All Together

Old Man Jack's Fishing Camp

The Next Day

9:00 AM

Ricky was the first one up the next morning. Both inspired and filled with great confidence following his and Dawn's visit with the Thunderclouds, he ended up going to a hardware store in town that previous evening and spent about $400 in necessary supplies to continue putting in the work to spruce up what, for years, had been quite a rather down-at-the-heel property.

Dawn soon woke up and went outside to find her rejuvenated brother hauling various pieces of discarded junk that had accumulated inside the small side shed just beyond the cabin. He was once again shirtless and wearing his athletic shorts and sandals.

"Hey!" Dawn called out to him while still standing on the front porch, "Good morning!"

In response, Ricky glanced up and smiled. "Good morning to you, my dear sister!" he replied.

Dawn came down off the porch and assisted her brother in hauling out the various pieces of old rusted-out tools and other assorted junk. "Jeez", she said, "How much of this shit have you moved out so far?"

Ricky gestured to the nearby construction dumpster that had been deliberately left there by the previous owner, at which point Dawn saw a roughly 5-foot high piled of discarded tools, vehicle hubcaps, old car parts, and a whole diverse plethora of things that could be classified as just plain, old garbage. Most of these items were incredibly rusted and coated in tremendous amounts of dust and cobwebs.

Dawn nodded. "Damn," she said, "I guess that answers my question."

"Yeah," Ricky replied, "When I first bought the place, Jack Rivers actually apologized to me for leaving all this crap strewn around the property. He even said that he was afraid that I'd call one of those TV shows that documents hoarders."

Dawn smirked in retort. "But" she said, "Being the exceptionally nice guy we all know you are, you didn't and here we are now hauling out what seems like at least three decades' worth of rusted junk."

Ricky shrugged his shoulders. "Yep," he said, "That's about the gist of it."

Dawn chuckled as she tilted a massively rusted old wheelbarrow upside down and, with Ricky's help, heaved it atop the inside of the dumpster. "Okay," she said after exhaling with exertion, "Is that all the crap you want hauled out?"

Ricky nodded. "It is," he replied, "Yeah. I'll call the dumpster company when we get done out here and see if they can pick everything up sooner rather than later."

The siblings then heard what seemed to be several people's footsteps coming up the driveway. They looked up to see what appeared to be the entire population of Sabal, Florida making their way onto the property, seemingly everyone with some kind of tool in their hand.

The sight of all these people made Ricky chuckle awkwardly. "What in the world is all this?" he inquired.

Timmy and Rachel Thundercloud stepped to the forefront of the large crowd, at which point the former offered up a reply. "We know how eager you've been to spiff this place up," Timmy said.

"So," Rachel added, "We thought that we'd call in a few friends to give you some extra hands."

Dawn smiled. "'A few friends'," she parroted, "That's one hell of an understatement. What'd you guys do? Call up the whole town?"

Mona, the obliging clerk from the Miccosukee shopping plaza who had helped the Harper siblings when they first arrived in the area, then stepped to the front beside Rachel. "No," she said, "There are a few of us left."

Timmy smiled in response to Mona's witty comment before looking behind him. "Okay guys," he said as he gestured to everyone, "Let's get to work!"

By 12:30 PM, the Harpers and their large group of new helpers had the property in nearly pristine shape. The now cleared out shed had been repurposed as an equipment shed, the yard's overgrowth had been cut back considerably, and an extended period had been spent mowing the large property's lawn.

Some work had also been put into the inside of the cabin. Mona had very humbly taken it upon herself to thoroughly vacuum and clean up the interior, while a local plumber had done some mild maintenance to the kitchen and bathroom to keep things in tip-top shape. This normally big expense had been paid for by a very unpretentiously generous Amos Thundercloud.

In addition to that, former property owner Jack Rivers and his wife, Melanie, had cleaned out the cabin's attic to fit Ricky's intended vision of making the space an extra bunk room for campers. As such, the couple had assembled two sets of bunk beds that had generously been donated by a local secondhand store.

Timmy found Dawn raking the last bits of debris from the farthest right side of the property. "Hey babe?" he called out.

Dawn stopped raking for a minute and turned to see him walking toward her, at which point she gave him a very sweet smile in response. "Hey handsome," she said as she wrapped him in a hug.

Though he always welcomed her affections, Timmy gave her an awkward chuckle this time. "Um," he stammered, "I wanted to talk to you about something."

Dawn's smile faded a bit upon hearing this. "Is everything okay?" she asked with concern in her voice.

"Oh yeah," Timmy replied followed by a comforting kiss to her forehead, "Everything's cool with me. I've just been thinking about what you were saying the other day."

"About what I said about Ricky and I potentially going off to college," Dawn inferred.

Timmy nodded. "Right," he said before sighing deeply, "I think you should go, Dawn. I mean, don't get me wrong, okay? What we have between us here right now is good. It's great, right?"

"More than great," Dawn replied.

"Mm-hmm," Timmy said, "Even so, though, babe. You worked hard to get into Boulder. I think you'd potentially be blowing a huge opportunity for yourself if you delayed that by staying here."

Dawn pondered her lover's very spot-on points for an extended beat. "I appreciate that," she replied, "And you're right."

Timmy smiled. "Besides," he said with a now more upbeat tone, "I do work for an auto body shop that's doing extremely well."

"What do you mean?" Dawn asked.

Timmy kissed her passionately on the lips. "I mean that I can certainly afford a flight to Colorado to see my gorgeous girlfriend once and a while," he said once the kiss was broken.

Dawn burst out laughing. "I'm going to hold you to that," she replied.

"You know you can," Timmy replied.

Meanwhile, Rachel found Ricky washing up in the kitchen. She surprised him by wrapping her arms around him from behind and kissing his cheek. "Hey you," she greeted.

"Hey," Ricky replied with a smile as he returned her gaze.

Rachel moved over to face him directly. "So," she said, "Are you sure you want to forego your big Business School plans to stay here for a bit longer?"

Ricky confidently nodded in response. "Yeah," he replied, "I think this is one of those rare times and opportunities in my life where I'm deciding to choose passion over career."

Rachel then got a look of slight concern on her face. "Ricky," she said, "Please don't feel like you need to move here for me."

Ricky then put up his hands for a moment. "Not only for you," he replied, "No. I think this camp is going to be a very nice place and environment for these young kids to be in."

A reassured Rachel nodded. "Cool," she said, "Well, if you need help, Timmy and I will certainly be here for you."

Ricky kissed her forehead. "Thank you, sweetie" he replied.

"Have you come up with a name for the camp yet?" Rachel asked.

Ricky smiled in retort. "You'll just have to wait and see," he replied, "The new sign will be here tomorrow."

[Author's Note: Alright guys, just one more chapter left with this one. Thanks everybody for reading and enjoying the story!]