Henri sat cross-legged on his bunk once again, playing a happy tune. Tinker sat next to him, wailing away on a cheap harmonica. The notes were discordant and the musicians not particularly skilled, but it added a festive note to a Saturday night. The men were relaxed and happy because Sunday would be their day off.
“Best food I ever et in my life,” Ernie said wistfully. “A girl who can cook like that sure would make a man a fine wife.”
“Purty too,” Cletus added, blowing the wood shavings away from a tiny carving he held in his hand.
Robert saw that Cletus had just finished carving a little bird. He set it proudly on the narrow shelf above his bunk. In the past few days, a small menagerie had formed on that shelf. All had names. Sometimes Cletus talked to them before he went to sleep. Robert had come to realize that Cletus was slower than his twin brother. It hadn’t been noticeable at first because Ernie was quick to intervene whenever anyone tried to talk with Cletus.
“Whatcha got there,” Mainer asked.
“This here is Whistlepete.” Cletus picked up the bird and held it out for Mainer to admire. “He’s a little sparrow.”
“Looks like a play-pretty to me,” Mainer said. “Never saw a logger talk to a bunch of toys before.”
Cletus looked ashamed and hid the little bird behind his back.
Ernie was leaning against the bunk. “Leave my brother be.”
“I was just sayin’ it’s a mite odd.” Mainer grabbed his double-bit axe and sat down for his turn at the grindstone. “Him being a logger and all.”
“Henri fiddles,” Robert said. “You sharpen your axe, Skypilot reads his Bible, Cletus carves. What a man does with his free time is his own business.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mainer said. “His sitting here night after night talking to his little toy animals bothers me. A grown man shouldn’t do that.”
Cletus lay down in his bunk, clutching the little bird in both hands as though to protect it.
“Ain’t none of your business,” Sam told Mainer, “what that boy does.”
Sounds of agreement came from around the shanty. Everyone knew Cletus wasn’t the brightest man in the camp; none had been cruel enough yet to point it out.
“What do you think Katie’ll fix for breakfast tomorrow?” Skypilot made an attempt to turn the subject back to their favorite subject—food. “I sure wouldn’t mind more of that bread pudding.”
“Who cares what she makes?” The big logger from Maine glanced up from the grindstone, where he was busy sharpening his double-bit axe. “What I’m wondering is if that little widow woman is lonely for a man yet.”
One of the men in the back of the cave-like bunkhouse gave a long, low wolf whistle.
Robert had been expecting this moment. “Best leave Katie alone,” he said. “She’s a decent woman and she has enough on her hands without having to deal with the lot of you.”
“You’re blind, Foster, if you don’t see she’s planning on finding herself a man.” Mainer ran his thumb along the edge of the axe, testing for sharpness. “Why would a decent woman come all the way out here if she didn’t have a whole lot more on her mind than cooking?” He glanced around at the other men for encouragement. “I seen women cooks at lumber camps before. All of ’em were married up to the foreman or boss.” He polished his axe blade with his shirtsleeve. “Never saw a woman decide to live in a lumber camp all by her lonesome. I think our little cook ain’t as sweet and innocent as she pretends. Or maybe”—he leered around at the other men—“Foster here already knows that and ain’t willing to share.”
Robert could feel the anger begin to boil in his veins, and he tried to shut it down. As much as he wanted to wipe the smirk off Mainer’s face, he knew he needed to control himself.
“I promised Katie no one would lay a hand on her if she came to cook for us,” he said. “I won’t allow you or anyone else to talk about her like that or bother her in any way.”
“Well, you’re the boss—but that Indian girl ain’t too bad,” Mainer said. “She’ll probably start looking better and better the longer we’re out here.”
“Leave the women alone.” Robert stood up from his bunk and looked straight at Mainer. He hadn’t appreciated the teasing of Cletus—but now with the insinuations about Katie and Moon Song, he was beginning to thoroughly dislike the man. “Both are under my protection. Cletus too.”
“I thought you just said that what a man wanted to do with his free time is his own business.” Mainer scowled. “You don’t have no call to tell me what to do except when I’m cutting down trees.”
“Either leave the three of them alone,” Robert said, “or pick up your pay from Inkslinger and move on. That’s an order.”
“Don’t think I’ll take any more orders.” Mainer stood up from his seat behind the grindstone. He was several inches taller than Robert and as strong as an ox. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes. “I already had me a bellyful of orders during the war.”
Robert bristled at the man’s vicious tone. Then he realized that Mainer was gripping the axe with both hands. One blow from it could hew a man in half, and both of them knew it.
It was not within Robert to back off, although he suddenly, deeply regretted hiring the man. “You need to find employment someplace else.”
“I like it here just fine.” Mainer had a self-satisfied look on his face. “I like having that pretty little widow woman a-waitin’ on me hand and foot.”
“It’s my camp.” Robert’s patience was stretched to the limit. “And you’re fired. Pack your turkey and get out.”
Everyone grew still, waiting to see how Mainer would react. Robert wasn’t sure he stood a chance against Mainer in a fair fight, but he knew if he backed down now, he would lose the men’s respect for the rest of the winter. The work would slack and this would turn into a haywire camp overnight.
And then Mainer uttered something so vulgar about Katie that Robert’s sense of danger evaporated. He had been born and bred in his father’s lumber camps and he’d had his share of fights. Without stopping to count the cost, he lunged at Mainer in spite of the fact that the man was holding an axe.
Mainer was so sure of his superior size that he had evidently not expected the boss to charge him. That gave Robert an edge. He landed one good, hard punch to the man’s stomach before Mainer swung his axe. Robert ducked and swerved just as the axe embedded itself two inches deep in the bunk above Robert’s head.
“What the ding-dong?” Tinker leaped to the floor. “I was sitting there, man! Watch yourself!”
It was at that point that Robert knew he was fighting for his life. He lowered his head and ran at Mainer, butting him in the chest, a blow that wrenched the embedded axe out of the logger’s grasp and made him stumble backward. Robert, quite literally, saw red as his eyes became suffused with a blood-thumping fury.
He’d watched his father take on loggers twice his size when they had questioned his authority. There was a bloodlust in the Foster family that caused them to lose all fear in a fight, as well as their common sense. Robert knew he couldn’t win against an opponent so much larger, but he didn’t care. That comment about Katie had been so dirty and vile—when she was so pure and fine—that it enraged him. His focus narrowed down to one objective—he was going to take that logger down, no matter how big the man was—if it was the last thing he ever did.
Mainer straightened up from the head butt and landed a blow so powerful against Robert’s right eye that it sent him reeling backward against the deacon’s bench. He sprang back from that hit, even angrier than before. He threw himself forward, grappling with Mainer as they fell to the floor, fists flailing.
Shanty boys loved a good fight so much that sometimes the fight would spread throughout the entire group for no particular reason. But the men stayed out of this one, except for shouting encouragement to Robert. It appeared that they all had been annoyed by Mainer’s obscene comment about Katie and were united behind him.
&nbs
p; Robert and Mainer fought up and down the center of the room, staggering into bunks, nearly overturning the stove. Mainer was bigger and stronger. Robert was faster and wilder, but his strength wasn’t quite enough to overcome the big logger. Mainer knocked him down and stunned him just long enough for Mainer to wrench his axe out of the bunk. Robert, still lying on the floor, gathered himself to roll out of the way of that murderous axe when it descended—but it stopped in midswing, held in place by Skypilot, the only man in the bunkhouse bigger than Mainer.
“That will be enough, now, lad.” Skypilot held Mainer’s axe in an iron grip.
Mainer tried to wrest it out of his grasp, but Skypilot was firm—a grown-up chastising a child. “I said—that will be enough!”
Robert collapsed against the floor, the fight draining out of him. He didn’t feel any pain yet, but both eyes were beginning to swell shut. The last thing he saw was Skypilot and two others accompanying Mainer to his bunk to pack up his things.
“Katie . . .” he mumbled through a split and swollen lip. “And Moon Song. They’re . . .”
“I’ll keep watch,” Skypilot said as he herded Mainer out the door. “I won’t give this fellow a chance to touch them.”
“Hope the wolves get him,” Ernie said, and spat.
“Wolves don’t like spoiled meat,” Tinker said with disgust.
Robert wanted to laugh at that comment, but his ribs ached and it hurt too much.
Before his right eye swelled shut, he watched Cletus placing the little bird beside the other small carvings.
“Don’t you never-mind, Whistlepete,” Cletus said. “Mainer’s gone. Just don’t you never-mind.”
13
There’s the doctor, and he’ll tell
great stories of his calomel,
of the great doses you must take;
’twill cure your fever there’s no mistake.
“Don’t Come to Michigan”
—1800s shanty song
Moon Song’s milk had come back. She was busy nursing her baby, looking on with interest from where she sat on her pallet as Katie rigged up her makeshift alarm system once again. Moon Song seemed to be drinking in and processing this strange new world of the lumber camp. Katie had tried many times to engage her in conversation, to see if she understood any English at all, but all she got was puzzled looks or shrugs.
“This,” Katie said, “will keep me from oversleeping tomorrow morning.” She touched the unlit candle and the string she had tied around it. “When this burns down to here”—she pointed to the string embedded in the wax, then at the old teakettle hanging above her head—“that will fall down, make a noise, and wake me up.”
Katie had no idea if Moon Song understood a word. She had lost interest in what Katie was doing and gazed down at her baby with adoration, caressing its downy head. The child was swaddled in more of the red flannel from the bolt Delia had insisted she buy. Katie was grateful she had the soft cloth to use against the infant’s tender skin, but she also wished she had purchased some white. It just didn’t seem right, bundling the child into red diapers.
Ned lifted his eyes from a small, ragged magazine he was reading in bed. “Why do you talk to her so much if she don’t even understand you?”
“Because it seems strange to be sharing a cabin with another woman and not talk to her—even if she doesn’t understand a word I say.”
“You never talked that much when we was living with Harlan.”
“Saying the wrong thing always set him off so I said as little as possible.”
“You never sang so much, either.”
“I’ve been singing?”
“Sometimes. When you’re rolling out piecrust or something.”
“I didn’t know.” She must be enjoying her work even more than she realized. “I’m going to blow out the lamp now, so you’d better put whatever you’re reading away, little brother.” She realized that she had no idea what he’d been looking at with such intensity. “What is that, anyway?”
“I found it in the bunkhouse.” Ned held up the tattered bundle of paper. “Laying on the floor.”
“The Police Gazette?” She snatched it away from him. “Let me see that.”
The date on it was from two years earlier. The front page was a lurid woodcut of a bedroom filled with people trying to protect the Secretary of State, William Seward, from assassination on the same night as Lincoln’s murder. The picture was enough to give her nightmares, let alone a small boy. She flipped through the pages and was shocked at the pictures, many of which involved scantily clad women.
“This is not something you should have.” She stuffed the offending sheaf of papers into the stove and was relieved when the shameful thing caught fire.
“But the shanty boys read ’em all the time,” Ned protested.
“What the shanty boys choose to do, little brother, and what you are allowed to do are two different—”
Someone pounded on the door. It was very late for someone to be coming to the cabin. She heard a familiar voice. “It’s Skypilot, ma’am.”
Skypilot? At this hour? Something must be terribly wrong. Heart pounding, she opened the door. Skypilot stood outside, his axe in his hand.
“Has something happened?” She could feel Moon Song and Ned pressing in around her.
“There’s been a bit of trouble over at the bunkhouse.”
“Trouble?” It seemed only a few minutes ago that she had envied the sound of laughter and music coming from there.
“The logger from Maine said some things the boss didn’t like. There was a fight and Foster threw him out of the camp. We think it’s best I keep watch outside your cabin tonight. I didn’t want to scare you if you looked outside.”
“I don’t understand,” Katie said. “What does this have to do with me?”
He shifted his weight. “Mainer said some things about you.” He stared hard at the wall, unable to look her in the eye.
She was still confused. “What did he say?”
“Some . . . off-color things.” He held up a palm. “Don’t worry, though. The boss took care of it.”
“Took care of it?”
“The boss fought him.”
“But Mainer is bigger than Robert.”
“Yes, ma’am. By a long shot.”
She couldn’t wrap her mind around what Skypilot was telling her. She repeated it to make sure she understood. “Robert fought a man much bigger and stronger than himself—just because the man said something about me?”
“That’s about it.”
“Is Robert all right?”
“He won’t look real pretty tomorrow, but Mainer will look worse.” Skypilot grinned. “The boss was so riled, he went after Mainer like a wolverine with rabies. We wanted to make sure Mainer didn’t try to get back at the boss by hurting you or the Indian girl.”
She couldn’t believe it. Robert shouldn’t be risking himself over a few off-color words. Not to mention, she had heard that Mainer was one of his most skilled axe men.
“The boss couldn’t let it slide.” Skypilot seemed to be reading her thoughts. “We shanty boys might look and act pretty rough, but we have a code, and that includes treating decent women with respect. There’s not a man in the bunkhouse tonight who doubts that the fight was necessary. If Foster hadn’t taken him on, one of us would have.”
“But how did he beat him? That man must have a hundred pounds on Robert.”
“It was kinda strange.” Skypilot’s eyes lit up at the memory. “None of us knew the boss had it in him. One minute Mainer was saying . . . what he said about you, and the next minute Foster was all over him.”
She had no idea how to take in this information. The fact that Robert had fought for her was startling. Robert was even more a man of his word than she had thought. He had promised that the men would treat her with respect, and he had backed that promise with his fists against overwhelming odds. Mainer was a brute. It was a miracle Robert hadn’t gotten himself killed.
“You’ll catch cold.” She rubbed her arms, chilled as much by the story as by the night air. “I have some extra wool blankets. Robert left several in a chest here in the cabin.”
“I’d be obliged, ma’am.”
Ned, listening in, had already lifted two blankets out of the chest. Katie pulled one of the chairs outside so Skypilot wouldn’t have to stand or sit on the ground.
As Katie closed the door, Skypilot was leaning back against the cabin in the chair, with his axe across his lap and the gray blankets draped across his shoulders.
Moon Song stared at the door for a long time, a thoughtful expression on her face. Katie couldn’t begin to fathom what the girl was thinking.
“I’m sorry about reading that Police Gazette,” Ned said.
“That’s all right.” In her surprise over Robert fighting for her, Katie had forgotten all about it. “Just leave those things alone from now on. They aren’t fit for a boy—or a man.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As Ned and Moon Song settled into sleep, Katie nervously paced the bit of remaining space on the floor. The news Skypilot had given her was unsettling. Imagine. Robert fighting for her honor!
In the past, when Katie couldn’t sleep, she would read—but there was nothing here to read. She almost, but not quite, regretted burning the Police Gazette.
As she paced, she caught a glimpse of something she had never noticed before. A corner of what appeared to be a book stuck out from beneath the eaves. The color of it blended into the wood, making it almost invisible. Climbing on a chair to investigate, she discovered a leather journal and a long wooden box shoved in beside it.
She placed both items on the table. The box was heavy, and something inside of it clinked softly. She hesitated over opening the book. It could be anything, she supposed. A personal diary, perhaps, but considering Robert’s no-nonsense attitude, she thought it more likely that it was a ledger of some kind—perhaps of camp expenses. It certainly wasn’t any of her business. Her hand hovered over the leather strap holding it together, but she didn’t open it.
Measure of Katie Calloway, The: A Novel Page 13
