Beneath the Slashings (Divided Decade Collection)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  “Watkins!” he grinned, displaying yellowed teeth barely visible beneath a shaggy, grizzled beard. “You devil! I ain’t seen you in a coon’s age. Where you been hidin’ yerself?” His face was badly scarred with ridges that extended into his hair and pulled his features tight. He looked as weathered as an old barn.

  The driver scowled. “Shoot, Sticks, you know what happened as well as I do. Stories spread around these parts like typhus.”

  “Naw, naw, I ain’t heard nothin’,” Fiddlesticks stated, crossing his arms and leaning his gaunt body up against the side of the wagon. He grinned knowingly. “Gunna have to tell me.”

  Watkins cleared his throat uncomfortably, his eyes skimming the clearing but landing on nothing. “Ain’t much to tell,” he hedged. “I was laid up for a few weeks with dysentery. It’s plagued me since the war.”

  “Ain’t what I heard,” Fiddlesticks smirked.

  Watkins wilted, looking embarrassed and resigned.

  “I heard you got over-friendly with a certain apple pie on Mr. Canfield’s window ledge, and the old man had Crumb take you off your route so you could muck out every outhouse in his shantytown.” The fellow let out a cackle that started in his toes and gained in pitch as it traveled up through his wiry frame. He doubled over as the cook and the blacksmith each came back to grab another load, leaning on the wagon for support. Watkins eyed him with injured dignity.

  Fiddlesticks finally wore himself out and pulled a dirty handkerchief from his back pocket. “Ah, son, it don’t pay to steal from someone who owns half the county.” He wiped his eyes and blew his nose before returning the cloth to his pocket. At last, he noticed Grace and Sam. “Where in tarnation did you find these pups?”

  “They’re the new bully’s kids,” Watkins said by way of introduction. “Sam, Grace, this sorry gust of wind is the barn boss, Fiddlesticks.”

  “Well, Sam and Grace, howdy do,” the man said.

  Ignoring pleasantries, Sam blurted out, “How’d you get a name like Fiddlesticks, mister?”

  “Well now,” the man paused, rubbing his thin chest, “I guess it’s because I’m as lean and tight as a fiddle string.”

  Watkins grunted and spit a stream of tobacco juice onto the ground. “It’s because Sticks here plays the meanest squawk box you ever heard tell of.”

  “You play the violin?”

  The bearded man affected a pained expression. “Do you see me in tails and a top hat, sonny? Out here it’s called a fiddle.”

  Sam grinned, and Grace knew he’d never make that mistake again. Gathering her courage, she ventured, “Excuse me. Do you know where my Pa is?”

  Fiddlesticks sucked on his teeth. “Nope, but I sure hope he finds a safer place to roost than our last boss.”

  Watkins shushed him, and Grace felt the faint beginning of some new alarm. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I mean it ain’t too wise to lounge in front of the business end of a rifle.”

  Grace’s forehead wrinkled. “I thought the last boss was fired.”

  Fiddlesticks guffawed. “Naw, he weren’t fired, missy. McCready got a royal escort on the shoulders of his men. ’Cept it probably weren’t so enjoyable inside a box.”

  Grace looked in confusion from Fiddlesticks to Watkins. Finally, the driver bowed his head. “I’m sorry, child. The last boss, Joseph McCready, was shot and killed. No one knows who done it.”

  Chapter 4

  “That must be your Pa now,” Fiddlesticks pointed, “comin’ out of the van.”

  With relief, Grace followed his finger to the little shack at the edge of the woods. Mr. Davison was just stepping out the door with Pa, obviously deep in conversation. Behind them followed a shaggy blond bear of a man, and bringing up the rear was an angular fellow who sported a neatly trimmed goatee.

  Goatee Man started toward the wagon. “Fiddlesticks,” he called, “help get these supplies stacked in the dingle before you put the tote mules in the barn.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Fiddlesticks gave the man a mock salute and made a show of hoisting a crate out of the wagon. But in a lowered voice he kept right on talking. “Sure didn’t take Bigg long to mourn McCready. He took over command like he’d been waitin’ for it all his life. Didn’t want to give it up to Jarvis this fall. Doubt if he’ll want to give it up to your Pa, either.” With a wink at Grace, he shouldered the crate and carted it off to the covered porch just as Goatee Man approached.

  “Who’s Bigg?” Sam asked.

  “I am,” announced the stranger in a voice as pointed as his beard. “Jim Bigg, camp scaler.” He hoisted a sack of potatoes to his shoulder and turned away without waiting for a response.

  Watkins nodded to Bigg’s retreating back. “He filled in as foreman last spring, but Davison pulled Jarvis,” he twitched his head in the big blond man’s direction, “from the mill to set up the new camp this fall.”

  “Why? Doesn’t Bigg know what he’s doing?” asked Sam.

  The driver chuckled. “You don’t become scaler without knowing the business, son. Bigg can figure the amount of lumber each log will produce down to the inch. But he comes with a heap of arrogance. The men follow Jarvis.”

  “They’ll follow my pa,” Sam stated proudly.

  Grace was still thinking about the barn boss’s last comment. “Is it true what Mister, uh, Fiddlesticks said? Would Mr. Bigg have wanted the position enough to kill the last foreman?”

  Watkins scoffed and switched his plug of tobacco from one cheek to the other. “Let me tell you something, lass. Sticks can spout more wind than a Texas twister. Why would Bigg want to take over the headaches of being head push when he earns pretty fair gravy without them?”

  Grace thought about his logic. It made sense. Still, she wondered if Mr. Bigg simply liked being in charge.

  The driver grasped a burlap sack and hauled it over the side of the wagon. “Reckon I’d best earn my supper,” he said with a nod at the children.

  Grace looked back to Pa, who caught her eye and gestured for her and Sam to join him. Sam leaped out of the wagon and ran across the clearing, but Grace’s steps were slow and sullen. She cast an uneasy glance toward the pig, but it had wandered off into the woods.

  “With any luck we’ll have snow before the month is out,” Mr. Davison was saying as Grace approached. “Jarvis, you’re needed back in town, and Bigg will have his own duties to attend to, so I want Nickerson plugged in as soon as possible. When can he meet with the men?”

  “The road crews will be back for supper, sir,” Jarvis answered.

  “Good. In the meantime, I want a full report of your progress.”

  “Of course, sir. I’ve kept careful records. The books are in the van.” He gestured back toward the shack, and Mr. Davison stepped inside again. But Pa held out a hand to stop the huge man from following. “Jarvis, I’d like to introduce you to my children.”

  A grin as wide as a pumpkin split the man’s face, and he let out a low rumble of laughter. Instead of a hello, Jarvis scooped Sam up in a bear hug, engulfing the boy in his arms and shaking him up and down. When he turned to Grace, she maneuvered a hasty sidestep that placed Pa between them.

  Jarvis roared with laughter. “Your Pa and I, we spent a lot of time together. I feel like I know you kids already.” He reached into his trouser pocket then placed something into each of their hands. “Knowed you was comin’ and saved out a shiny new dime for each of you. By gum, I wish I could stay a few days and spoil you like a regular uncle,” he made a face and bobbed his head in the direction of the door, “but Davison calls the shots. Can’t keep him waiting.”

  After Jarvis followed Mr. Davison into the van, Pa lingered a moment, smiling at his children. “So, what do you think?” he asked. His face was alight with pleasure and contentment, like a wanderer returned home from a long, long absence.

  Sam was quick to catch his enthusiasm. “It’s just like you said, Pa!”

  “Grace?” Pa asked. “It’s not as bad as you thought, is
it?”

  Her face was stony. She turned away as if to address the camp rather than her father, but she didn’t speak to either.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Pa said. But this time his words came out softer and thicker, like one of Aunt Sally’s winter quilts.

  “Nickerson,” Mr. Davison called from inside the building, “you coming?”

  “Just getting my kids settled. I’ll be right there.”

  “I told you, I won’t pay a girl like I’ll pay your boy.”

  “I understand, Mr. Davison.”

  Sam’s ears perked up. “Pa, does that mean—?”

  Jarvis poked his head out the door. “Have them fetch their things into the van for now, John. Then they can go help Ivan in the kitchen. We’ll find places for them to sleep later.”

  “Ivan!” Jarvis yelled to the cook, who was still unloading the wagon, “got a couple of recruits for you!”

  The cook waved and continued working.

  “Pa, what did Mr. Davison mean?” Sam asked, his voice rising eagerly.

  Pa clapped him proudly on the shoulder. “Son, how would you like to hire on as chore boy?”

  “I knew it!” Sam yelled, stabbing the air a few times with one fist.

  “You might not be so excited when you learn all your duties.”

  “I’ll do anything, Pa! You know I will!” Sam sounded as enthusiastic as a hound setting off on a hunt.

  “Go on then,” Pa laughed, “both of you. I’ll find you later.”

  Sam positively swaggered as they walked to the wagon. “Can you believe it, Gracie? A real chore boy! Just like Pa was when he was young! Maybe in a few years I can be a swamper, or a bucker, and then a chopper. Maybe someday I’ll even be boss!”

  Grace attempted a smile. “That’s wonderful, Sam.” But inside, she felt terribly out of place. She didn’t belong here, and Mr. Davison was the only one who seemed to know it.

  Sam handed down her bags and Bertie’s cage. “Aw, come on Gracie, cheer up. It won’t be so bad. We’ll be together, at least.”

  Grace glanced at her brother with his pleading eyes and that stubborn lock of hair that always fell over his forehead. If they were at home, Aunt Sally would make him sit down for a haircut.

  “With you, me, Ivan, and his wife all working together,” he speculated, “how many chores can there be?”

  Grace would remember those words with wry humor.

  Squeezing four extra bags into the van proved as difficult as stuffing a fat man into boy’s trousers. The cabin was tiny and crammed to capacity. In it stood two bunks, two desks, two chairs, a small stove and a wall of shelves overloaded with supplies. There was absolutely no extra space for a kitten, so Grace brought the cage along when they sought out the cook.

  Ivan wasn’t hard to find. One half of the largest building was a mess hall filled with slab tables and benches on a dirt floor. Noises coming from a door at the far end gave away the cook’s presence. Stepping through it, the children found a kitchen dominated by a huge cook stove and furnished with two more bunks. Though the day was cool, it was sweltering inside the kitchen.

  “Ah, you haff cat. This is goot,” the cook grunted, pursing his lips and pushing his huge mustache out an inch from his face. “Mice eat food. Cat kills mice.”

  Taking the cage from Grace, he set it on the lower bunk and opened the latch. Bertie emerged cautiously, his tiny whiskers bristling, but soon he was haunting the corners of the room and pouncing on the last of the season’s flies.

  “He is little now, but soon he vill grow big. Then no more mice,” the cook said with stern satisfaction.

  Ivan then ushered Sam to one of several work tables. Brushing aside a pot and a broken barrel, he ripped open a huge sack of potatoes. Then he handed Sam a knife and thunked a massive kettle down beside him. “Men eat much potatoes.”

  Sam’s eyes widened. “You want me to fill that?”

  “Much potatoes,” the man repeated.

  Sam shrugged gamely and started chopping off thick chunks.

  “Not like that. Spin potato.” The cook picked one up and demonstrated how to shave off long, thin curls. “Feed only skins to pigs.”

  Grace had been hovering uncertainly in the background, but now she ventured to ask, “Are—are the pigs always allowed to run free?”

  “Pigs kill snakes,” Ivan answered.

  “Snakes?” She clutched at her skirts and scanned the ground uneasily.

  “Men cut forest. Out come snakes. Pigs eat snakes,” he held up a long, curly paring, “and rubbish. Then ve eat pigs.”

  Sam took back the knife. “Did you learn to peel potatoes like that in the war?” he asked, as if snakes were of no more account than squirrels.

  “Not my var,” Ivan grunted in answer.

  “Pa said he peeled thousands of potatoes.” The boy grinned good-naturedly. “By the end of winter, I’ll probably be as good as him!”

  Ivan turned to address Grace. “You bake bread, yah?”

  She nodded.

  “Goot.” He pointed to a table across the kitchen. “Men eat much bread.”

  She followed his finger to a washtub swelling with yeasty dough. The cook handed her a stack of tin pans, and she began punching down the sticky mountain and forming it into loaves. It was more bread than Aunt Sally baked in a month.

  Ivan left then to pull several sheets of cookies from the oven. He flicked them onto a table, scooped spoonfuls of dough from a bowl deep enough to drown in, dropped them onto the still-hot pans, and popped them back into the oven. Every motion was quick and efficient. Without stopping, he tore into a crate of apples and began filling half a dozen pie crusts with smooth, white slices.

  Grace gauged the huge amounts of food with disbelief, and Sam broke the silence with the question she wanted to ask. “How many men live at the camp, anyway?”

  “Soon forty. Men build roads and skidvays now. Easy vork. Not so long hours. Not eat so much.” Ivan smiled grimly. “Ven snow comes, ve cook much food.”

  Sam was undaunted. “How long have you been cooking in the camps, Mister—”

  “Not Mister. Just Ivan.”

  “All right, Ivan,” Sam said with importance. Grace shot him a look of disapproval. Aunt Sally would never let them call a grown-up by his first name. “How long have you been a dough pounder?”

  Ivan didn’t even blink at the term. “I come from Mother Russia many years ago. I meet a man who say to me, ‘You cook?’ I have no vork, so I say, ‘Yah.’” Ivan’s face remained impassive as he stated, “I not cook so goot then.”

  Sam laughed, and even Grace smiled at the admission. The cook’s steady manner began to set her at ease. “Did your wife teach you to cook?” she asked. She had seen no sign of the woman yet.

  “My vife?” Ivan asked.

  Grace nodded. “If there are to be forty men in this camp, I’ll be very glad for her company.”

  “No vife.”

  Grace stared at him blankly. “Will she be arriving soon?”

  The cook frowned at her and shook his head. “Ivan haff no vife.”

  Chapter 5

  In a matter of days, it seemed, the last of the leaves dropped from the trees and frost sketched patterns on Grace’s window. It was a tiny window, made from a shaving mirror out of the van’s supplies, but it was her very own. Johansen had taken it to his blacksmith shop and scraped the silver backing off the glass then mounted it in a wooden frame. When her room was ready, Pa nailed it into the gap he had cut in her outside wall. The ledge was just wide enough to hold Grandpa Harper’s wooden dog.

  It had become apparent immediately that Grace would need a room of her own. Sam was given Ivan’s spare bunk, as his first job each morning was to start the fires in the kitchen and bunkhouse, but Grace had to spend that awkward first night in the van, taking the bunk Jarvis vacated when he returned to town with Mr. Davison. Mr. Bigg slept in the other bunk, and Pa spread his bedroll on the floor—the only floor in the camp that wasn’t dirt
. The next morning she had to wait until both men left the building before she could get dressed.

  Pa had assigned several men the job of constructing a lean-to on the back of the van directly after breakfast. That same afternoon, Johansen installed a stout lock on the door of the finished room.

  Grace melted a clear circle on her tiny pane and peered out at a world laced with frost. Each night for a week, crews had been spraying water over the sled tracks. They drove a wagon equipped with a tank and a hose, and as the ice thickened, Johansen exchanged the wheels for runners. The tracks had to be frozen and slick before the huge logs could be hauled out of the forest.

  The swampers had been out, too. After Pa scouted which trees should fall first, he sent the teams out to clear the area of brush and small trees, making room to saw the massive trunks into logs that could be skidded out to the loading areas. The skidways also had to be cleared and iced. But at last Pa had announced that logging would begin today.

  She dressed hurriedly, twisted her hair into one long braid, and hustled through the predawn darkness. Already the snow reached the tops of her shoes and wet her socks. She paused for a hasty visit to the outhouse, shivering as cold air gusted through the chinks then ran for the warmth of the kitchen stove.

  Ivan had rows of flapjacks cooking on two giant griddles. Sam was retrieving salt pork from its all-night bath and cutting it into thick slices that sizzled when they hit the frying pan. On the back of the stove steeped a tall bucket of tea, which added a steamy fragrance to the kitchen.

  “Grace!” Sam called out. Up at four o’clock every morning, he nevertheless had been thriving on the camp’s regimen, happily rubbing elbows with the lumberjacks as they sharpened axes and waterproofed boots with lickdob, a nasty concoction made of tallow, beeswax and lampblack. He felt his own importance every time he was called upon for some small errand. “Pa signed on the last ten men,” he told her. “We’re going to have our first full house this morning!”