Beneath the Slashings (Divided Decade Collection)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  His eyes shot open with surprise and then narrowed. “Really?”

  She smiled. “Sure. Just let me deliver my treat for Annabelle.”

  She stepped up to the big work horse’s stall, and immediately the animal hung its head over the door and nosed the fold in her cloak where she had hidden a handful of potato parings stolen from the pigs’ slop. Grace giggled as the horse nuzzled them off her hand.

  “You’re going to spoil her.”

  Startled, Grace turned to see Johansen standing behind her. Over his shoulder he carried a treacherous-looking tool: a stout pole with a metal point and a hinged hook on one end.

  The blacksmith smiled and scratched the horse under its forelock, smoothing the long hairs off to one side. “She works hard. She deserves a little pampering.”

  He gestured to the tool. “Mind if I walk with you? I have to deliver this cant hook to Needles, and I’ll pick up the broken harness.”

  “Sure, come along,” Sam invited.

  The blacksmith’s manner set Grace at ease. He was as gentle and lumbering as an ox, with a deep, lowing voice. “Who’s Needles?” she asked.

  “Jim Hawkins,” Johansen answered. “Quiet fellow with the bright yellow muffler.”

  Grace remembered him now. Many of the men wore bright colors to prevent accidents. “Why do they call him that?”

  “Word is he sews the straightest seam in camp.”

  Of course the men would have to mend their own clothing with no women in camp to do it for them. Still, the thought of a tiny needle in the big calloused hands of the lumberjacks struck her as funny. Her chuckle froze before her in a silky gray sheen.

  Grace clumped along the icy track, thankful again for her boots. The tall, thick-soled leather looked silly with her dress, but she little cared. Her feet stayed warm. The boots were heavy, however, so by the end of the day she was glad to slip them off.

  “Johansen, why don’t you have a nickname?” Sam wondered out loud.

  The big man shrugged. “Reckon I never gave anyone cause to rename me.”

  “But all the men have them,” Sam protested. “Red, Squeaky, Shorty, Doc, Judge, Wrong Hand.” His face grew wistful. “Sure wish I had one.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Grace scoffed. “Samuel is a perfectly good name.”

  Sam shot Johansen a look that plainly asked, “What do girls know?” The big man winked. “Stick around long enough and Sticks will give you one.”

  “I don’t know if I particularly care for Fiddlesticks,” Grace mused. “It’s awful, those things he said about his dead wife.”

  “What things?” Sam wanted to know.

  But Johansen let a slow, toothy grin climb over his face. “Now, miss, don’t go believing a word out of that man’s mouth. Last week he was married to a woman named Juliet who was so stick thin he used her to pick a lock.”

  Grace’s mouth dropped open. “He said that?”

  “That man will say anything to get a reaction out of his listeners. You’ll learn to take every word with a grain of salt.”

  The corners of Grace’s mouth lifted then, and a wave of lightheartedness seemed to rise right up from the ground. She laughed and relished the tickle it brought to her throat.

  Sam stopped in the middle of the road. “Grace, I haven’t heard you laugh like that since—” he paused, his face puckering, “since Sarah Snyder moved away.”

  Her laughter faded into a remembering look. He was probably right.

  The sled road followed the easiest course through camp. As they walked, Sam began explaining operations to Grace. He told her how a team of choppers felled a tree, swampers lopped off the branches, and buckers sawed the trunk into lengths.

  “Then the logs are skidded out to the road where they are loaded onto giant sleds,” he continued, growing more animated. “You should see the horses strain to get the loads started. I don’t even know how they do it with logs stacked so high over their heads.”

  “But how can the horses get such heavy loads up and down hills?” she asked.

  “It’s the road crew’s job to make sure the horses have traction on the uphill and the sled tracks have sand on the downhill. Going down is worse. Sometimes they even throw ropes around the trees at the top of the hill to slow the sled down.”

  “Bear Creek doesn’t have too many hills,” Johansen put in. “Jarvis ran the roads around them whenever he could.”

  The voices of men and axes began to filter through the cold air, and Grace could see splashes of bright color between the trees. Squeaky’s deep tones vibrated clearly through the chilly air.

  “It’s not far. I left the cart just up ahead,” Sam announced. Together, the three of them rounded the last bend just in time to hear an angry voice ring out:

  “Jones, I’m going to kill you!”

  Chapter 9

  It was Silas.

  The clearing between the trees suddenly filled with the figures of men. Silas launched himself at Jefferson, and the two men fell into a black and white heap. Their thrashing arms and legs churned the snow like an explosion. Other lumberjacks gathered around them, shouting out names, cheering their favorite.

  A body streaked past Grace and wrenched the cant hook out of Johansen’s grasp. It was Pa. He ran to the center of the ring and with two sharp blows, he had the men apart. “Warren, Jones, enough of this!”

  Silas lunged again for Jefferson, but Pa grabbed him by the shirtfront, jabbing the point of the cant hook under the man’s chin. “I said that’s enough, Silas!” Pa thundered and shoved the man backward into the snow. “Now, somebody tell me what’s going on.”

  Jefferson stood guardedly, his corn kernel smile absent. With one hand, he rubbed the side of his face.

  Silas stumbled up from the snow. “That darky,” he spluttered, his words smeared with hate, “don’t know one end of the axe from the other. He can’t hit a target the size of a barn door. I told you I can’t work with him.”

  Pa glanced at the chop marks in the tree. “Looks fine to me. Jefferson, what’s the problem here?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “There’s obviously a problem,” Pa stated, his words round with sarcasm, “or the two of you would be hacking away at the tree instead of at each other. And I want to hear what it is. Now.”

  Jefferson nodded. “Yes, sir. I just called Silas, here, a yellow-bellied warbler, and he didn’t take to it real peaceful like.”

  Pa paused a moment, his eyebrows arched like question marks. “Is that true, Silas?”

  “Darn right it’s true. I don’t take no guff offen a darky.”

  “His ‘guff’ hardly seems threatening.” Pa turned back to Jefferson. “Why, exactly, did you call Silas a yellow-bellied warbler?”

  “Because he’s been singing a good bit today, boss.”

  Pa looked back and forth between them. “I didn’t know you sang, Silas,” he drawled. “What have you been singing?”

  Silas’s face darkened. He muttered something unintelligible and kicked at the trampled snow.

  “Squeaky,” Pa called to the nearby Frenchman, “did you know Silas could sing?”

  “No, sir, bossman, I deed not. I have not had, what you say, zee pleasure of hearing him.”

  Pa turned again to Jefferson. “What has he been singing, Jones?”

  The big black man glanced around at the men then dropped his eyes to the ground. “I’d rather not say, sir.”

  “Oh, no. We have interrupted our day’s labor for this performance. I’d like to know the songs.”

  “Well, sir,” Jefferson said, looking up hesitantly. “He sang a good deal about my mama and my sisters and black folk in general. Sang so much I mistook him for a songbird.”

  A soft patter of laughter circled the gathering, and Squeaky called out, “Oui, zis song I have heard sung today!”

  Pa’s stern look didn’t alter. “Well, Silas, you got your wish. You will no longer be paired with Jefferson.”

  Silas swiped at the greas
y strands of hair that hung in ropes in front of his face. He shot the black man a leer of triumph. Jefferson stood silent and still.

  “Squeaky!” Pa called.

  The big Frenchman hopped forward. “Oui, bossman!”

  “From now on, you’re chopping with Jefferson. Silas, you’ll be limbing with Shorty.”

  Pa’s words worked their way into Silas’s head like a slow, steady stream of water that rinsed the smirk right off his face. He followed Pa stiffly, hatred burning his eyes. Pausing in front of Jefferson, he threatened loud enough for Grace to hear, “Watch yerself, darky. Close your eyes and they might not open again.”

  Pa lashed out with the handle of the cant hook. “Get moving!”

  Silas took the blow wordlessly, resentment in every line of his body. Grace saw a few other scowls of displeasure, as well. It was clear Silas wasn’t the only one who thought choppers should be white.

  After collecting what they came for, the threesome trudged back to camp, Sam pulling the sled, Johansen shouldering the broken harness, and Grace carrying an armload of questions. When had Pa become so violent? Why was Silas so hateful? Was Jefferson in danger?

  “Sam, what’s going to happen to Jefferson?”

  “Wrong Hand?” Sam asked. “Aw, he’ll be fine. The men practically live on top of each other. They’re always bickering.”

  “That was more than bickering,” she countered. “Silas hates Jefferson.”

  “You’re right, Grace,” Johansen put in. “There’s a lot of animosity in that man. He’s a regular wood hick straight out of the Pennsylvania hills.”

  “How do you know that?” Grace wondered.

  “Knew him in the war.”

  “Was he this much trouble?” she asked.

  “Every bit. Some of us hoped the Rebs might spare us the trouble of hanging him.”

  “What’d he do?” Sam asked.

  “How much time do you have?” the big man quipped. “He was written up for drunkenness, disorderly conduct, destruction of private property, and stealing. He was also a suspect in the injury of a corporal, but no one could pin him for it.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t him,” Sam suggested.

  “Oh, it was him, all right. There were even rumors that he joined up because the law ran him out back home, something about a local clan war.”

  “A clan war?” Grace asked. “I thought that kind of fighting only took place in the poorest parts of the Appalachians.”

  “His is the same type, miss. Backwoods as you can get. Some have family feuds that go back to Noah.”

  “Sounds like a nice fella,” Sam said wryly.

  “Wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him.”

  Grace, glancing at the huge man, thought that might still be a fair distance.

  “What regiment did you serve in, Johansen?” Sam asked.

  “The 77th Pennsylvania.”

  “But isn’t Johansen a Scandinavian name?” Grace protested.

  “It is.”

  “Then why did you fight?”

  The blacksmith was plainly baffled by her question.

  “Ivan didn’t fight,” she explained, “and he’s from Russia. He said it wasn’t his war.”

  “That’s so. He wasn’t in America five years when war broke out. I wouldn’t go to Russia and fight their wars.”

  “But you’re Scandinavian.”

  Johansen laughed, understanding her at last. “Yes, just like your father is English, and Doc is Scottish, and Red’s Irish, but they fought. Grace, my family immigrated here more than a century ago.”

  “Oh.” Grace could feel her face growing warm. “I guess that would give you an interest in the Union.”

  “I didn’t fight for the Union. I fought for Pennsylvania. That is my home, and that is where my loyalties lay.”

  “But Pennsylvania is part of the Union.”

  “I guess that’s why I wore blue.”

  “But didn’t you fight for the slaves?” Sam asked.

  “Weren’t any slaves in Pennsylvania.”

  “Oh,” Sam faltered. “I bet you’re still proud of the outcome.”

  Johansen’s face darkened. “Son, I’ll have to live with that war the rest of my life. There’s not a thing about it I’m proud of.”

  The week’s excitement soon blurred into routine. As a rule, the men’s energy for fighting dwindled as the work week passed. Grace heard no more about Silas, and Mr. Bigg kept a low profile. Meals went back to being quiet affairs. If Grace happened to cross paths with one of the men outside the mess hall, however, most of them now acknowledged her with a polite nod and a mumbled, “How do, miss?”

  And sometimes she even nodded back.

  On Thursday evening, Ivan prepared a thick stew and half a dozen vinegar pies. Slabs of cornbread lay stacked about the kitchen like bricks, and Grace had fried enough sinkers to scuttle a schooner. The tables were set, and supper awaited only the clomp of hooves and the low singing of returning men when the dingle door burst open.

  Ivan glared out through the propped-open kitchen door. “Vaiting for the Gabriel, you should be,” he called out impatiently.

  “I’m not here to beg for early handouts. I have a proposition to make to Grace Nickerson.” Gideon appeared in the doorway, his face pinked with cold.

  Sam grinned at Grace from behind the steaming kettle of stew that he was scooping into smaller pots. Ivan waved Gideon away. “Her hands, they are very busy.”

  “I won’t interrupt, and it will only take a moment.”

  “It is your head,” Ivan groused, “if dinner is late.”

  Gideon’s eyes sparkled with mischief beneath a woolen cap. Grace stiffened at the sight of the boy. “What do you want?”

  “I’d like to ask you to the dance in the bunkhouse Saturday night.”

  “No.”

  She brushed past him, carrying a heavy pot of tea. A hint of the pine woods lingered around him along with the aroma of sweat and horses.

  “Come on, Grace. It’ll be fun.”

  “I would rather spend my evening in the barn.”

  “That could be arranged,” he grinned. “We could hear the music plain enough.”

  “Good-bye,” she answered, pushing back into the kitchen and kicking loose the prop so the door swung shut behind her.

  Gideon laughed from the other side. “You win tonight, but I won’t give up so easily.”

  His footsteps retreated and the door to the dingle blew shut.

  Grace grabbed a pair of rags and hoisted a pot of stew. “Did you put him up to that?”

  Sam shook his head, still grinning. “No, he came up with that all on his own.”

  “Back to vork, you two. Samuel, go sound the horn.”

  Gideon Black, the cook crew soon learned, possessed all the patience and tenacity one might expect of a pioneer farm boy. He came again on Friday and on Saturday to repeat his request. Both times, Grace flatly refused.

  But Gideon was unabashed. Every night the following week he returned, smiling cheerfully beneath his hat. And the week after that.

  On the thirteenth night, Ivan turned on Grace with exasperation. “Vill you not accompany the young man already and give us all some peace?”

  With a sigh, Grace faced her persistent suitor. “If I agree to go with you this once,” she asked, “will you swear never to ask me again?”

  “On my father’s grave.”

  Her brow pulled low. “Then, if you promise, I will dance with you this one time.”

  Gideon took her hand there in the kitchen doorway and bowed low over it. “I will anticipate the pleasure all week.”

  She snatched her hand away. “Go wash,” she snapped. “You smell like a horse.”

  Gideon winked and disappeared to the sound of his own laughter.

  Chapter 10

  Grace plunged her arm into the kettle shoulder deep, scouring the insides with a ragful of sand. It was her least favorite chore but the only way to remove the cooked-on food.
Just beyond the kitchen she could hear the rowdy mail call finishing up.

  “Watkins, where’s my package?” The voice belonged to Red O’Sullivan, the camp’s lone Irishman. “My wife promised a package of socks and cookies this week, and I don’t see it.”

  Fiddlesticks agreed, “We’re looking forward to his wife’s cookies, too. Come on, Watkins, no holding out on us.”

  “Yes, Watkins, where are zee cookies?”

  “Sorry, fellas. The mail bag’s—whoops there is one more...” Watkins paused, “but it ain’t for you, Red. It’s for Miss Grace. Grace!” he shouted.

  Grace waited for Sam to retrieve her letter like he usually did then remembered Ivan had sent him outside to replenish the wood box. She straightened and wiped her hands on her apron. As much as she didn’t like all those eyes watching her, she did want her letter. She pushed through the kitchen door.

  But it wasn’t a letter. A small package was passed to her hand over hand. Squeaky held it aloft. “Eet is a book or I am, what you say, greatly mistaken.” He offered it to her.

  Grace took the package and ran her hand over the hard surface. Her name was written in Aunt Sally’s handwriting and it was, in fact, just the right size for a book. She hoped so. As much as she loved Aesop and Andersen, she had read both volumes a dozen times.

  “You cannot read zee paper wrapping,” Squeaky shouted. “Open eet!”

  Grace laughed and tore the paper away. It was a book. A brightly colored picture of a little girl looking up at a grinning cat in a tree graced the cover. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” she read. She had never heard of it.

  Inside the cover her aunt had written, “This book is all the rage in England. I managed to order one of the first American copies. Hope it arrives in time for Christmas. All our love, Aunt Sally and Uncle Peter.”

  She turned the cover toward Squeaky, who still stood nearby. “Très joli,” he smiled. “Very pretty, but I cannot read zee letters. Eet ees, what you say, Greek to me.”

  “It’s a children’s storybook,” she told him. Then tucking the precious volume under her arm, she rushed back into the kitchen. After she had flipped through several pages, Ivan broke into her thoughts. “The kettle must be finished. If you vill meet your young man, you must get back to vork.”