Blackwater Ben

by William Durbin

  Ben and Nevers made faces.

  “But the worst cooks are the drunks,” Packy said, dealing the next hand of cards. “You never can tell what they're gonna throw into the kettle. One time at Rory Calhoun's camp I found a sock in the teapot. When I brought it to Rory's attention, he said, ‘Thanks, Frenchy, I wondered where that sock went.’ ”

  “Rory was a fine cook when he was straight,” Jiggers agreed, “but he'd only stay sober until he had time to batch up some home brew out of raisins and prunes and pie crust.”

  “You believe your pa ain't so bad now?” Nevers poked Ben in the arm.

  “He's still crabby, if you ask me,” Ben said.

  “Which fellow is your wood butcher?” Nevers asked.

  Ben pointed him out at the card table.

  Nevers walked up to him and asked, “Would you have a board to spare for a Christmas project?”

  “Fine by me. Arno burns up the waste oak in his forge anyway. After I finish this game, I'll let you borrow some tools.”

  “We're set.” Nevers grinned at Ben. “I've made some fine projects out of hickory, and oak should polish up about the same. Give us a couple Sundays, and Santa'll be coming to the Blackwater Logging Camp.”

  THE SKY HOOK

  Over the next few days Ben found out more about his mother from Charlie. He learned that her favorite color was green (so was Ben's), and that she loved rainstorms (Ben didn't) and lemon meringue pie (a match again). One of her favorite books was Walden. Charlie explained that it was by Thoreau, the fellow he'd mentioned once before, who had loved nature so much that he'd built a little cabin in the woods and lived there all by himself. She also liked a story called Le Morte d'Arthur, which didn't sound good until Charlie told him it was about King Arthur and his knights.

  The problem was every time the dentist started a good story, Ben got called back to the cookshack. Even with Nevers's help, there were so many new jacks arriving in camp that the kitchen crew scrambled to keep up.

  Luckily, Ben was getting faster at his potato peeling, thanks to the tater races he and Nevers were having. Nevers usually won their one-potato duels, but when it came to endurance peeling—doing a whole panful at a time—Ben came out on top as often as Nevers did.

  Despite Nevers's quickness in the kitchen, he often got in trouble for not keeping track of supplies. Pa had a paper stuck on the wall, and the cookees were supposed to mark down items that were low. But because Nevers couldn't write, he had to ask Ben to do his recording.

  Whenever there was a mistake, Pa knew where to turn.“How come this lard can is near empty,” he said once, looking straight at Nevers, “and I don't see no note on our order list?”

  “I'll take care of it, Pa,” Ben said.

  If they weren't in too big of a hurry, Ben showed Nevers how to write simple words like salt and pork. But when it came to rutabagas or molasses, Ben had enough trouble spelling those himself.

  “Thanks, Ben,” Nevers said after he'd printed out oleo for the first time. “You're a good teacher.”

  “Don't call me that,” Ben said, shivering at the thought of being compared to the helmet-haired, ruler-wielding Miss Stanish.

  Of all the new arrivals, the jack who impressed Ben the most was Percy Cantwell. Cantwell was a lanky top loader known as Slim, though some of the fellows called him Sky Hook. Slim had cool gray eyes, and he didn't joke around like the other fellows. When Ben asked Windy why Slim never strung more than a half dozen words together, Windy said, “Slim is one jack who lets his loading do his talking. It takes a special touch to top off a sled that's decked out with twenty thousand feet of wood.”

  No matter how cold it got, Slim wore a short jacket. His staged pants had been cut off above the ankles so the cuffs couldn't trip him up, and his leather boots were fitted with low lumbermen's overshoes for good traction. Slim preferred a Stetson hat over the usual wool cap.

  The first time Ben saw Slim at work, he understood what Windy meant about Slim's loading doing his talking. The crews hadn't moved a stick of timber to the landing yet, and Ben knew that if the logs couldn't be floated downstream in the spring, the company wouldn't get paid. But once Ben saw Slim working on a load, he knew it would be a cinch for them to make their contract.

  Ben had just pulled up to the cut, but nobody noticed him. Since the jacks normally ran the minute they saw the lunch sled, Ben thought something was wrong. Then he saw that everyone was watching Slim.

  When Ben climbed down, Ed Day pointed at the loading crew. “The groundhogs are sending a blue butt up to the Sky Hook.”

  Ben knew that the groundhogs or sending-up men were the fellows who guided the logs up the skid poles that leaned against the sled. He asked Day, “What's a blue butt?”

  “Log with a big bell,” Day said. “Taper makes 'em tough to control. Some call 'em big blues. They can be two-ton killers if you don't know your stuff.”

  Slim was straddling the top of a two-story-tall load. Logging sleds were dangerous because the logs were held in place only with corner binds and wrapper chains. The whole load could be dumped by two men hammering loose the fid hooks, U-shaped pieces of iron that held the chains.

  Slim was about to top off the load with a monster log. The groundhogs had wrapped a rope around the blue butt, and the cross-haul teamster was ready to pull from the other side.

  At a signal from Slim, the teamster started his horses. As the log rolled up the skids, the groundhogs guided each end, while Slim stood on top with his cant hook in his hand and a pipe jutting out of his mouth. “He's always got that stub pipe between his teeth,” Day said. “You can tell how hard he's concentrating by the angle of the pipe stem.”

  Ben figured this must be a tricky load, for as the log shot up the skids, Slim's jaw tightened, and his pipe stood straight up. “Saginaw,” Slim hollered from between his clenched teeth.

  “What's that mean?” Ben asked.

  “They need to slow the small end of the log. But if Slim says St. Croix, it's time to speed her up.”

  The icy bark crackled as the log climbed the skid poles. It was traveling so fast that it looked like it would shoot over the top and crush Slim.

  Just when Ben was ready to holler “Jump!” Slim cut the log free. Dancing aside, he buried his cant hook in the butt end and gave the log a quarter of a turn. The momentum was perfect. The blue butt settled onto the top of the load with a resounding thunk. Ben heard that same sound whenever he watched cabin builders roll a perfectly scribed log into place. As flecks of bark and ice fell to the ground, the jacks nodded their approval.

  “I don't think we'll need to chain this one down 'tall,” Slim said, walking the length of the massive log to test its balance. Slim's pipe was back to horizontal, and he wore a hint of a smile.

  Slim took his pipe out of his mouth and pointed to Ben. “Now that cookee's here, we'd better take ourselves a lunch break.”

  THE NORWEGIAN HELPER AND HOW ONE MONKEY GOT SENT DOWN THE ROAD

  When Ben arrived at the cut the next day, the jacks were lined up before he could climb down from his seat. As Ben opened the food box, Packy whispered, “Want to see something funny?”

  “I suppose.” Was Packy going to play a trick on him?

  “I'll wait till you have the boys ladled up.”

  Instead of sitting on the log with the rest of the men, Packy sneaked up behind Jiggers.

  When Jiggers lifted a spoonful of beans to his mouth, Packy let out a wolf howl.

  Jiggers jumped straight up. His spoon flew out of his hand, and his plate flipped over. The jacks laughed as beans, pie, and bread scattered in all directions.

  The only man who didn't laugh was Swede. He paused only long enough to scrape a few stray beans off his pants leg and shovel them into his mouth.

  “Dang you, reprobate,” Jiggers yelled at Packy. Then he turned to Ben. “You got any extra grub in that pot?”

  “I've never seen anybody jump so high,” Ben said as he scooped some cold beans from the b
ottom of the kettle. He was surprised that Jiggers wasn't angrier.

  “I can't help myself,” Jiggers said. “When I get startled, it's like a trigger goes off inside me.”

  “He's some jumper, eh?” Packy laughed.

  While Ben was loading the dishes, he got a chance to see the sawyers work up close for the first time. The swampers had already cleared the brush around a big pine, and the notcher had chopped off the bark at the cut line. Without saying a word, the sawyers set their saw in place. After a few short strokes to start the blade, they pulled in a steady rhythm that made the taut steel sing. The teeth spilled long curls of white wood out of the kerf, and the resin smell of pine prickled Ben's nose.

  Halfway through the cut the sawyers stopped and hammered two wedges into the kerf to keep the blade from binding. Packy said, “You'd better clear the road, cookee.”

  “Let me show him my Norwegian helper first.” Swede waved to Ben from the opposite side of the road. “Come over and meet my little buddy.”

  Ben looked at the pine Swede was ready to fell. There was no one else in sight. “He's right here,” Swede said. Bending down, he plucked a rubber cord that was looped around an iron stake pounded into the ground. “How do you like my helper?” He chuckled.

  Swede grabbed the handle of his saw. Each time he pulled the blade toward him, the cord drew it back. He was sawing faster than the two-man crew. “Those foremen never have found a man who could keep up with me.”

  “But don't it get lonely?” Ben asked.

  “Where could I find better company than me?” Swede said. “Besides, I never have to argue with anyone when it's just me”—he plucked the cord—“and my buddy.”

  Ben shook his head as he walked to the swingdingle. He'd never met anyone more in love with himself than Swede.

  As Ben was picking up the reins, Ed Day hollered,“Pull, boys, pull.” Ben looked up just in time to see a road monkey jump clear of Day's sled. The monkeys were supposed to shovel the manure off the road and spread hay on the hills to slow the sled runners, but this boy had forgotten to shake the frost out of the hay.

  Day's sled raced down the icy ruts like a runaway train. The logs swayed as Day hollered, “Ho, Buddy,” to his lagging leader. The horses couldn't run any faster, but the sled was still picking up speed. It would tear Day's heart to see his prize animals sluiced. Just when Ben thought the team was going to fall under the runners, the sled jumped the ruts and headed for the woods. It missed a birch tree but snapped off a small balsam. A shower of needles flew into the air, and Day's cap got knocked into the snow, but his horses kept their feet as the sled jerked to a stop.

  Day ran forward to check his team. Only then did he turn and yell, “You, monkey, you—” But he stopped when he saw that the boy was already hightailing it back to camp. “That monkey might not know much about haying,” Day said, grinning, “but he knows when it's time to collect his pay.”

  When Ben told Nevers about the accident on the hill, Nevers's eyes got big. “I seen a horse go down once under a runaway wagon,” he said, “and it ain't pretty.”

  “Did the horse get killed?”

  “Tore him up something awful. It was my daddy's best plow horse, Jefferson Davis. He'd loaned him to a neighbor who got liquored up and drove his lumber wagon down a muddy hill over the top of him. Poor Jeff was such a mess you couldn't tell the red clay from the blood. We only had a two-horse farm, so that cut our stock in half.”

  “Did your neighbor pay for the horse?” Ben asked.

  “You cain't get blood from a turnip. Looking back, I can see that was the beginning of the end of my daddy's farming days. And in the long run, it was the end of his marriage days, too.”

  JIGGERS JUMPS AGAIN

  Once Packy knew that he could get under Nevers's skin by speaking French, he teased him every chance he got. Sometimes he'd walk into the cookshack and say, “Hello there, Nevers.” Then, after Nevers had relaxed, he'd spew, “En Avril ne te découvre pas d'un fil,” at him. Other times Packy wouldn't say a word the whole meal, but when Nevers was serving the dessert, he'd whisper, “Vivre et laisser vivre.”

  “Make him stop, Mr. Ward,” Nevers said, but Pa and the rest of the jacks only laughed.

  “Don't let Packy rile you up like that,” Ben said. “The more excited you get, the more he's gonna do it.”

  “But—” Nevers started.

  “Your partner's right,” Slim cut in. “It don't do no good to throw kerosene on a fire.”

  By Sunday Ben was looking forward to having extra time with Charlie. Ben had tried asking Pa questions about his mother, but he'd only grumbled, “She was a fine lady. What else can I say?”

  As Ben made up a lunch tray for Charlie, Nevers asked, “Suppose he'll tell you more about your ma?”

  “He's contrary at times, but I hope so.”

  “Come and get me when you're done, and we'll get started on our woodworking.”

  Ben knocked on the dentist's door, and Charlie greeted him with the closest he'd ever come to a smile. “How's Squire Benjamin?”

  “Isn't squire some sort of fancy title?”

  “ Squire used to refer to a country gentleman, but these days we use it to mean any young working man.”

  “That's me, then. I'm young and I work.”

  After talking about the weather and camp life, Ben finally said, “So what else can you tell me about my mother?”

  “Did I tell you how feisty Lucinda was?” Charlie looked over the top of his glasses. “She loved to talk ideas. She could have taken on an Oxford debate team singlehanded, especially when she was talking about Walden.”

  “The book about that fellow who lived alone in the woods?”

  Charlie nodded. “She could quote Walden backwards and forwards. I hadn't studied Thoreau in England, so he was new to me. Thoreau believed in independent thinking and in folks following their dreams.

  “Lucy and I had a long discussion over the end of the book. After spending two years in his shack, Thoreau went back to town. I told her that if he was true to his beliefs, he should have stayed at Walden, but she insisted that he'd learned all he could and needed to move on.”

  “So he decided to give people a try again.”

  “You could say so,” Charlie said, looking toward his saws. “Sunday might be a holiday for you, but it's the only day these misery whips sit idle. I'd better get cracking.”

  Ben and Nevers spent the rest of the afternoon working on Christmas presents for Pa and Mrs. Wilson. After running through a list of projects that they could make out of scrap wood using only hand tools—“I figure that eliminates a rolltop desk or a credenza,” Ben said—they decided on a bird feeder for Mrs. Wilson and a cutting board for Pa.

  Ben came up with the idea of making the feeder look like a rough model of Mrs. Wilson's boardinghouse, and Nevers suggested attaching small leather hinge strips on the roof so that it would be easy to add bird seed.

  Nevers traced out a scalloped pattern on Pa's cutting board, which made it a lot fancier than a plain hunk of wood. Then they took turns cutting out the rough shape with a keyhole saw and rasping the edges smooth. For a final touch, Ben and Nevers carved their initials in the handle along with the date: 1898.

  After supper the boys visited the bunkhouse. Packy greeted them by saying, “Howdy, fellows.” Then, after pausing just long enough to get Nevers off his guard, he added, “Mieux vaut tard que jamais.”

  Nevers was about to spout something back at Packy, but Ben touched his arm and said, “Don't let him get your dander up.”

  Slim winked at Ben from the card table.

  The rest of the jacks were sitting quietly. The room was lit by the hazy glow of two hanging kerosene lanterns. Ben whispered to Nevers, “Do you want to see something funny?”

  “Okay,” Nevers said.

  “You keep Jiggers's attention for a minute.”

  Ben sneaked up behind Jiggers, who was sitting in a chair with his feet facing the stove.


  “What you working on?” Nevers asked.

  “I'm just whittling,” Jiggers said.

  “Boo!” Ben yelled. Jiggers jumped straight up. Ben was ready to laugh until he saw the knife. Before Ben could duck, the blade flew out of Jiggers's hand and buried itself in the log support post.

  Jiggers stared at the bone-handled hunting knife that had stuck in the wood right between Ben's and Nevers's cheeks. Instead of yelling, Jiggers asked, “You all right?”

  Ben and Nevers both nodded.

  “You imbécile,” Packy said, cuffing Ben's arm. “He coulda killed any one of us.”

  “I wasn't thinking,” Ben said when he finally found his voice.

  When Packy saw that Ben and Nevers were both pale and shaking, he put his arms around their shoulders. “At least you dopes are okay. If Jiggers had been holding an ax in his hand, somebody woulda got guillotined for sure.”

  CHRISTMAS AND THE GOOD SISTERS, OR THE NUN AND THE BLUE BUTTS

  The tote teamster arrived two days before Christmas. Ben was excited to see that Pa's special order had come along with the mail and the regular supplies.

  “The turkeys are here!” Ben called back to the kitchen. Pa needed a dozen turkeys for Christmas dinner, and he'd been worried all week that they might not arrive in time.

  When the teamster headed back to town, Ben sent along the bird feeder that he and Nevers had made. He tied it inside a flour sack and put a tag on it that said merry christmas, mrs. wilson. from: ben and nevers.

  On Christmas Eve Charlie gave Ben one of his books as a present. That was a much better gift than the new white shirt from Pa! It was a copy of Le Morte d'Arthur, the King Arthur story his mother had liked. Charlie read him a short part about Arthur claiming his right to the throne. Charlie's accent made the legend seem so real that Ben could imagine himself grabbing the hilt of the magical sword Excalibur and pulling it from an anvil anchored in rock.

  Ben was running back from the dentist's shack with Charlie's dishes in one hand and his book in the other when a little sleigh drove up to the cookshack. Ben was so anxious to tell Nevers about his King Arthur book that it took him a minute to realize that the cutter was carrying two ladies.