by John Benteen
“There are climbing ropes back at camp.”
“I know,” said Fargo. He told himself that he was a fool. But the thing about it was he’d hired out to make MacKenzie’s cutting of the Wolf’s Head a success. Whatever that required. He’d given his word to The Colonel.
Then he gestured to the limp body. “Take his irons and safety belt off him. I’ll be back directly.” He strode toward Barbara Mannix. “Miss Mannix, can I borrow your horse?”
She stared at him with unreadable eyes. Then, mutely, she nodded.
“Thanks,” said Fargo, and he swung into the saddle without touching stirrup.
He rode the animal hard. It was lathered when he reached the logging camp. He drew another climbing rope from the clerk, inspected it minutely, satisfied himself that it was sound, looped it around the saddle horn, and put the tired animal back into the woods. When he reached the clearing and swung down, the horse was dead beat, standing with head dropping between its legs, sides heaving like bellows.
Duke’s eyes were incredulous. “You made good time.”
“I know how to ride,” Fargo said. He turned to Barbara. “Walk him for a while. He’ll be all right if you walk him for half an hour.” Then he looked back at Duke. “The irons,” he said. “The safety belt.”
They had been taken off of Hoskins’ corpse which had been laid out under the branches of a grove. Fargo examined them as carefully as he had scrutinized the climbing rope. Milligan came up to him. “You want some help?”
“Nobody,” Fargo snapped, “touches this gear but me! Nobody!”
Then he was satisfied. He hooked the wire-bound loop of one end of the safety rope into the toggle on the belt, made sure it was locked. He confronted the enormous fir trunk. Duke made a motion. “I’ll pass the rope around to you.”
“Keep your goddamn hands off that rope!” Fargo snarled. He was an expert with a lariat; he gave the rope a twist and its end hurtled around the trunk. He caught it, snapped it into the belt. With ax and saw dangling, heavy weights, he sucked in a long breath and began to climb.
He socked the tree hard with his strong legs. The spurs bit in. He tucked his body toward the trunk. Two steps at a time, he thought, then move the rope.
He did it that way. Two steps, move the rope, two more, go on up. Incredibly, he was forty, fifty feet off the ground before he knew it. The faces below were tiny blurs …
But now it was all coming back to him. He gained confidence. Don’t look down, he thought; look up.
Above, the untopped spar towered, its shaggy head a challenge. Fargo’s feet, finding rhythm and instinctive knowledge, socked in the climbing irons, deep and solid. He kept the rope moving.
Up, on up, past the fresh-cut knots that Chuck Hoskins, now crumpled fresh below, had chopped or sawed. On up, ten feet, twenty more. Don’t look down … He was a hundred feet in the air, then. That instinctive fear, even though he saw nothing but the huge trunk before him, had clenched his gut. When you had watched a man you’d known come screaming down from a hundred and fifty feet up —
He went on relentlessly. What kept him going was the fact that he was doing a job. He had never hired out to do a job in his life that he had skimped or dogged. You didn’t work for twenty thousand a throw if you operated that way. And death was death, whether it came from a rebel Mexican’s bullet or when you hit the ground from this high up. It was all part of the game.
Then there were the branches, the ones Chuck had not had a chance to cut. They feathered over him, and his nostrils were full of the pungency of their needles and the bleeding pitch from those already severed. Fir pitch, a woods smell, a strong smell, the smell of work and danger. He was all right now. The rope would hold. He would have to be careful not to chop it. Maybe someday they’d wise up and put a metal core in a climbing rope, so such an accident could not happen, he thought.
He braced himself among the needled foliage, balanced on his spurs. He unhooked his ax, went to work. His muscles were loosened now by the morning’s work. Occasionally, he glanced down. They were like ants below, white faces upward. Like little, tiny ants. He was up above them all. But he was still scared. He would be, until solid ground was beneath his feet.
But the fact that he was scared, that he was forcing himself to do something almost beyond his powers, felt good. This was how a man stayed a man, to keep moving out, doing things that scared him. This was how you knew you still had your balls. The ax rose and fell, accurately, with rhythm. Limbs crashed down. Fargo clutched the rope, lifted one spur, balancing on the other. Nearly two hundred feet high now, he climbed.
Then he had reached the spot.
Here was the pay-off; this was where the high-climber earned his money. From here on up the tree was too limber; it had to be topped. Here. One hundred and eighty, maybe two hundred feet above the ground.
He leaned back out on the rope, pivoting on the irons. His eyes shot up the trunk which was arrow straight. He searched it for any deviation, for weight of foliage on any side. Because now, when he chopped and sawed off the top, his life depended on knowing which way it would fall. It had to fall away from him. If he misjudged, made the slightest mistake, if the butt kicked out and came down upon him, if it went to the side and the falling branches lashed him loose … No. No, this had to be perfect. Absolutely perfect. It was the only way he could keep alive.
His experienced gaze roved, judged. The limbs were heavier on yon side. The trunk had whip to it; when the top fell it would lash. He would have to know which way, be prepared for that. It was a hell of a job when you had been out of the woods as long as he had.
But there was no way out. He made his decision. Then he unslung his ax, began to chop his undercut on the side where he wanted the tree top to fall. He had to ease around to do that, manipulating rope and spurs with utmost cleverness and still trying not to look down, not to think about how long it would take a man to drop so far and what would go through his head while he did. The ax bit deeply, throwing large, pungent chips as Fargo chopped a clean cut.
Then it was right. Absolutely right, had to be. Another inch’s cut might foul up everything. He worked the equation in his head, hooked the ax on the belt, unlimbered the saw, but only after he had worked back around the trunk to the far side from his ax cut.
Above him, twenty feet of treetop towered, and below him the onlookers—he cast his eyes down briefly, then was dizzy—were reduced to tiny grains. He started his cut, began to work the saw.
It bit deeply, pouring sweet-smelling grains of living tree across his poised, locked legs. He sawed, and sawed, body moving rhythmically, using all its strength. It seemed to him that he sawed forever.
Then he felt the motion in the tree. The trunk vibrated, began to whip and, instinctively, he dug in deeper with his spikes. The huge fir that had sprouted centuries before his birth let out a kind of gasping moan. Fibers ripped. The treetop wavered. Fargo stared up, fascinated, wondering which way it would go.
Then the butt kicked. The severed portion of the top lashed out just above his head. Overbalanced, it began to fall, ripping wood with it, making his rope jump. Then it was free, falling loosely.
Reaction. The whole tall stump of the Douglas fir began to whip. It lashed back and forth viciously, but Fargo had judged the probable direction and braced himself. As the cry rang out of his throat, “Timberrrrrrrr—” the great length of treetop hurtled down. He jerked the climbing rope up tight, gathering in slack, and hung on for dear life. It was like the mast of a ship in a heavy gale. Below, he heard a thunderous crash. Slowly, the trunk eased its motion. Fargo, hands sweating, held the rope tightly, kept tension on his ankles to drive the irons home.
Then the huge, raped tree had shuddered to a halt; it was still. Fargo let out a long breath. Almost timidly, he disengaged one iron and started the long climb downward.
~*~
Earth felt good beneath his feet. He savored its solidity, as Duke Hotchkiss pounded him on the back, “Fargo! Goddamn, Far
go, you did it!”
“Yeah,” Fargo said thinly. Then he smelled again that waft of perfume. Barbara Mannix’s hands clamped around his wrists, “Oh, Fargo, that was magnificent.” He looked into those swirling green eyes, read what was written in them. The excitement, the invitation … He pulled his hands away, remembering how she’d handled Chuck Hoskin’s climbing rope.
Duke moved between them. “When you’re rested, you got to go back up, you know. We got to rig the guinea line, the bull-block, the haul back ...”
“I know,” said Fargo. “Gimme a minute.”
He went off into the spruce, taking his gear with him so no one could tamper with it. He sat down there, smoked a cigarette. Then another. They calmed him. He came back to the base of the topped stub. The worst of it was over. “All right, Duke,” he said. “I’m ready to go back up. Bring the gear.”
It took him the rest of the afternoon to complete the rigging. When he was through, the forest was festooned with cables. Tomorrow they could start getting out the timber. No time was lost.
They buried Chuck Hoskins at sunset. If he had any relatives nothing in his turkey gave their name. His body was committed, without prayer or ceremony, to the rich earth of the Wolf’s Head Tract. They put a wooden cross over his grave but the wet air of the coastal mountains would soon rot it down, obscure it with moss and fern. Fargo thought that maybe it was just as well. He had lived in the woods, let him die in them, become part of them.
He ate as hearty a supper as any of the rest. After chow they went into the bunkhouse, dried their socks and clothes and rehashed the long day, told tall tales of other jobs and of high-binding blasts in the timber towns. Fargo sat apart from them. He was in no mood for their loose talk. Some reaction had fastened a mood upon him. At half past eight, the last lamp was quenched. Before long the bunkhouse was full of variegated snores.
Fargo lay awake. When everyone else slept he arose, soundlessly as a cat. Dressed, pulled on boots. The air of the bunkhouse was steamy with the smells of masculinity; he wanted the clean scent of cut spruce. Clothed, he went out into the wet, chill darkness of the Washington highlands at the approach of fall.
He walked through the sleeping camp toward the river. He halted at the dam, stared down into the pond where a fortune in cut fir floated in the water. His eyes surveyed the dam. It was made of logs and stone, high and wide, with a relief spillway at the far side, cut too small to let through a saleable spruce log. The water pounded, thundered, over the spillway. Something about the dam bothered Fargo. After a while, he knew what it was.
Charlie Ross.
God’s gift to women, Milligan had said; and Ross had died trying to cross that swirling, brawling river on the logs. But that was foolish, that was absurd. The dam itself made a fine bridge across the river. No lumberjack worth his salt would balk at jumping the six-foot spillway. Why hadn’t Ross crossed on the dam instead of on the log boom?
Maybe he had, Fargo thought, and he eased down the bank, onto the dam’s solid top.
He felt the vibration of angry, penned water behind the structure. Come time to drive, blow this dam, those logs would go swirling downstream like racehorses on a track, especially in fall flood. He came to the spillway, it’s gap did not seem challenging. He leaped it. Landed, cat-like, on the other side.
He climbed the far bank, following a path. Mannix and his daughter lived over here, supposedly off-limits to the timber beasts on the other shore. He ascended a hill, and then, from within the cut timber, saw the light shining in the cabin window.
He took out a cigarette, shielded it with his hand in a special way he knew, and lit it. He watched the cabin. He watched it too hard; or maybe the wind was wrong. He should have smelled her perfume before she came up behind him.
“Fargo,” she whispered.
He jumped and turned. Barbara was there on the path. She still wore the tight shirt and jeans but now the shirt was open to her waistband and he saw the double pothooks that were the shadow-outlined lower slopes of her breasts.
His gray eyes narrowed under white brows. “What are you doin’ out here at this time of night?”
She laughed softly, a sound from deep in her chest. “It’s only nine-thirty. Is that late?”
“In a lumber camp.”
She came up to him, put a small hand on his wrist. “I haven’t lived in a lumber camp all my life.”
“I gathered that,” said Fargo dryly.
She put a quick finger to her lips. “Shhh. My—father has the most fantastic ears.” Her other hand clamped on his. “Don’t talk,” she whispered. “Not yet.” Then she pulled him and he followed, partly curious, partly aroused by her touch.
She led him down into a kind of hollow where small fir formed an impenetrable barrier all around. It was like a fragrant bedroom. She sank to the ground, lay back against the needles. She had never let go of his wrist and now she pulled him down beside her. “Fargo,” she said, “you know, it’s a hell of a lonely life to be the only girl in a camp full of men.”
If there had been light in this dark place it would have gleamed on teeth revealed in a wolf’s smile. “I’d think it’d be a hell of an interestin’ life for a girl.”
“Not with my—not with Lance Mannix. He watches me all the time, like a hawk.”
“He ain’t watchin’ you now.”
She laughed softly, huskily. “That’s because he killed half a bottle of booze before he went to bed.”
“The Forest Service don’t usually hire drunks.”
“They hired him,” Barbara’s laugh was bitter. “Before Wilson was elected, he was President Taft’s second cousin. By the time the Democrats came in, he was already entrenched. They didn’t bother with small potatoes like him.”
“You aren’t crazy about your old man,” Fargo said.
“My old man. No. I’ve lived with him too long. I don’t have much respect left for him. He’s a drunk, and he’s weak. I like strong men.” Her hand tightened on his; her face was close to his, her lips … “You understand Fargo? Strong men.” Then she moved his hand, and when it came to rest he knew what she wanted.
He pushed his hand down hard against all that softness. She moaned, and then he felt her lips on his. They stayed there for a long time. When she broke away she moaned, “Oh, Fargo ...”
There was a rustling in the darkness. She was pushing down all that tight denim. His groping hand touched smooth, naked flesh; her mouth came up to seek his again. Fargo moved. He let her hand unlatch his belt.
He had his own knot to unwind, after climbing that damned tree four times that afternoon. For a while, in her receptive embrace, he let it go.
Then it was finished. She lay beside him, cradled on his arm, hand stroking the hard muscles. “Oh, Fargo. Oh, oh ... ”
He came back to rationality. “Fargo,” she whispered, “every night, you hear? Every night.”
“Yeah, if I can. But your Dad ...”
“He’ll drink himself to sleep. Like he always does ...” Her voice was drowsy; her lips played over his hard chest where she had unbuttoned his shirt. “He’ll never know Fargo, come back tomorrow night. Here.”
“Maybe,” Fargo said. “Maybe not.”
She tensed beneath him. “What do you mean, maybe not?”
“They say you’re bad luck. A Jonah.”
“Who says that?”
“A lot of people; Duke for one.”
She laughed. “Duke—that big puppy dog. Fargo, please ...” Her nails dug into his back.
He pulled away, arose, put his clothes together. “All right,” he said. “Tomorrow, if I can.” He tucked the Batangas knife into its seat in his hip pocket. “I’ve got to go now.”
“But—yes. Tomorrow.”
“We’ll see.” He turned away, climbed out of the hollow. Pausing, he heard the rustle of her footsteps going to the cabin. He lit a cigarette. Oh, yes, by damn. It was phony. It was phony as a nine-dollar bill. She and her father and ... It stank. The whole se
t-up that brought a woman into a logging camp—something unprecedented—stank.
He walked through the woods, came to the dam. He descended the bank, walked out, jumped the spillway, landed sure-footedly, caulked soles digging in. Straightened out, went on. Then halted.
Here the river was fifty yards wide. He had traversed half that distance. How he knew that someone else was on the dam he could not say. But he sensed a presence in the darkness ahead of him.
The pistol was under his mackinaw, but that was not what he reached for. His hand fished the Batangas knife from its sheath, his wrist flicked, and both handles peeled back to lock within his hard palm, leaving ten inches of fantastically hard and sharp steel exposed. Then Fargo moved on, carefully.
His movement and that of who else was here was masked in the rushing sound of water pouring down the spillway. Fargo kept the knife pointed outward, low, parallel to the dam, in a knife-fighter’s stance. Then he saw the blackness that until now he had only sensed. It loomed ahead of him on the dam.
It moved then, and he saw, too, the ax-blade limned against the sky, coming down in a sharp, chopping motion.
It was wielded expertly. If he had not had superlative reflexes that swishing stroke would have decapitated him. But the double-bitted blade went by over his ducking head, and then Fargo charged in before the blade could come back again. He thrust out with the knife.
When you cut a man in the belly with a knife you can feel the two distinct phases of your killing. First the resistance as the blade penetrates the taut web of muscle; then the easy, soft part, when it lands home in the viscera. Fargo felt both now in his knife hand which seemed, for the moment, to have a life and sensibility of its own. He heard the man on the dam grunt, gag. He heard the ax drop, splashing, into the river. He twisted the knife. When he jerked it upwards the man tried to scream but it was cut off short, to a moaning gurgle. Then the body pulled away from the blade; there was another splash as it fell into the Wolf’s Head River.
Fargo crouched there, knife at the ready, for another instant. Then he ran across the dam, up the bank. He ran through the sleeping camp and, totally soundlessly, entered the bunkhouse. The chorus of snores still rang within it.
