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THE LOGGER'S INHERITANCE |
| Written by Don Chance | |
| Friday, 29 February 2008 | |
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Share it:      THE LOGGER'S INHERITANCE By D. L. CHANCE
No matter how much a growing nation needed all the lumber it could get in its relentless ocean to ocean expansion, not just anyone came to test themselves against genuine timber country. It took a special brand of manhood; tough, hard-muscled men with equally hard natures, habits and language. Loggers - they'd fight the man who called them by such sissified names as "lumberjack" to their faces - didn't abide sass from timber rattlers, timberwolves, bears of any kind, and especially not from mere mortals of their own human persuasion out in the tall and uncut. But from New York and Kentucky and Pennsylvania and Michigan and Maine, and even the open prairies of Kansas and Nebraska, they came to harvest the verdant green riches of the Great Northwest for day wages and a hot meal. These men dealt with giants; trees so massive and majestic that the challenge of felling them, of publicly defeating and humiliating them even though only other loggers and other trees might witness the act, easily overrode the wonder such colossal monsters might inspire among the overly sentimental. In their loud-colored flannel shirts, thick wool britches, knee-high hobnails, and absolute belief that sudden death in the deep woods comes only to the truly deserving, loggers faced off daily with more sensible inner voices that demanded better pay and an easier line of work. And they disdained the distractions that come from isolation, fatigue, loneliness, and sharing the shanty with a foulmouthed gang of assorted humpbacks, brush cats, high riggers, stump fellers, limb skinners and saw greasers. To these grim-faced men, a day was the extended physical agony between an early breakfast and a late supper, and a week of such days produced a few dollars that could be lost into the pockets of the logger who could make a handful of cards tell the most consistently believable lies. Diversion, any diversion, was craved in the rough-cut timber camps where the future stretched out as predictable as the next valley in line, and the past lay as bare and insignificant as last month's logged-off ridge; and family troubles left far behind stayed left far behind. But there was this one time... Homer Choate, by his best estimate, figured he'd just turned thirty-one the summer after the 20th Century died off. Born deep in Tennessee's share of the Great Smoky Mountains, he was never quite sure just where, Homer grew tall and sturdy; and always took a heaping measure of satisfaction from a job well done. At seventeen tender years, with his mother long dead, he finally had a gutful of the worthless sumbitch whose only gift to a smarter and stronger manchild was a name. Homer left the old man bleeding and bruised, and cussing like a spinster at a stray dog relieving itself on her porch, and lit out on his own. He drifted aimlessly for a few years, working when there was work to be had, going hungry when there wasn't. After a while, Homer came to imagine that every new location meant that the old location, and its people, immediately melted into a state of unreality; almost as if they'd never even existed. But he kept moving steadily toward the sunset, learning to accept life as it came to him. He also learned to eagerly accept the lust that often passes for love when the real thing isn't available. It was the desire to stay ahead of a supposedly heartbroken Kansas City preacher's daughter - and a preacher with murderous intentions over alleged promises made and broken concerning an alleged impending birth - that caused Homer to hop an empty boxcar on a westbound train, swear off women once again, and slide the door shut. When it slammed open three days later, a trio of grinning, mean-spirited railroad dicks, and it took all three of them to do it, tossed him out alongside the tracks at a busy logging camp somewhere in the high country west of Denver. Always able to see the hidden sense in most any situation, Homer reckoned his choices were pretty much limited to walking back out of the mountains hungry, whipping the railroad thugs and getting back into the boxcar hungry, or learning to sling an axe and getting fed. So he tightened his belt and swore he had far more chopping experience than he could legitimately lay claim to, and was hired on anyway. The money wasn't good, and the work wasn't exactly what he'd have chosen given a better set of options. But the job did come with plenty to eat and a relatively warm place to sleep. Homer gamely settled into absorbing the logger's trade in all its backbreaking aspects, and was an expert wood hick by the time he signed on a few years later with a new outfit bound for Washington's timber-rich Columbia River country. There, still another few years slipped by before something unusual happened at supper one night in late summer. "Big Bull said to tell you you got mail," the cook rasped, ladling a helping of steaming venison stew into a chipped crockery bowl with one hand and jamming a chunk of hot cornbread on top of it with the other. He spat a heroic gob of tobacco juice into the hog bucket at his feet before squinting his good eye up at the big, bearded man at the end of the line. "It came in with the supply wagon this morning." "Oh?" Homer glanced around at the crowded lamp-lit dining tent, knowing even before he turned that he wouldn't see the boss seated at any of the long rough-sawn plank tables and eating with the crew. "Where is it?" "Hell if I know." The old man stirred at what was left of the thick stew still bubbling in the cast iron pot a good fifteen minutes after he'd taken it off the fire. "It's probably over at the **** shop with the Bull." The cook blinked the eye that still worked reasonably well, and chuckled lustily. "And with that new woman that came up on the wagon, too, I'd bet. Say, Homer, if you don't mind I'd like to get me a sniff of that letter after you read it." "A sniff? Why?" The cook leered a gap-toothed grin. "Well, I'm thinking it maybe could have been windy on the trip, and maybe she might have set on it to keep it from blowing away," he said. "Maybe. And even if she didn't sit on it, she must've handled it." Homer knew the wisdom of staying in the cook's good graces. And besides, he reasoned, how important could a letter to him be? "You'll be the first," he promised. "That's right neighborly of you, Choate." The cook spooned another generous ladleful of stew into the bowl. "Right neighborly." Nodding his thanks, Homer took the stew and two mugs of scalding hot coffee in his massive work-rough hands and moved toward his usual spot at a table in the corner. The space was always available because, unlike the other men, Homer made a habit of taking his time cleaning himself up after a long day of swinging the heavy double-bit misery stick. He was always the last one through the grub line for the same reason. At the table, he studied the various forks strewn down the center plank. Sighing, he chose one with the fewest dried chunks of last night's supper still clinging to its misshapen tines and dunked it unceremoniously into one of the coffee mugs. He swirled it in the scorching brew for a few seconds, then wiped the fork on the bandanna knotted loosely around his neck, bent one of the prongs back into shape, and flicked the now tainted coffee onto the filthy sawdust doing its best to cover the raw dirt floor. "Well ain't you the fastidious one this evening," a big-boned, swarthy-featured logger said from the next table. "Griff, you tell me that every night," Homer said tiredly, scratching at a spot on his beard still moist from washing up. "And every night I remind you of it." "I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true." Griff drained his own coffee mug and tossed his dirty fork at the center of his table. "But it is true." "I reckon it is," Homer said, working his broad shoulders to chase a few kinks out of his muscular back before breaking up about half the cornbread into his bowl and digging into the stew with the heat-treated fork. "I reckon it is." Griff didn't know how to answer this, so he belched and came to his feet. "I heard tell you got a letter today," he said, hitching up his pants with one hand and brushing crumbs from his disheveled walrus mustache with the other. "Heard it came up on the supply wagon with some fancy ***** gal." "That's what I heard, too." Homer didn't waste any curiosity on how Griff knew about the letter. Personal letters were scarce creatures in the timber camp, and everyone on this side of the mountain probably knew about it by now; the news undoubtedly helped along because of the mighty welcome - but forbidden, for now - feminine visitor in whose company the letter had arrived. "Talk is she probably brought it in her valise," Griff said, shrugging. "But I got to wondering if maybe, her being a ***** and all-" "She didn't ride up here sitting on my letter." Catching the irritation in the bigger man's tone, Griff spread his hands innocently. "Hey, I never really thought she did," he said. "But I figured, it being so windy lately-" "You can sniff it after the mulligan mixer gets done with it." Griff turned his shaggy head to frown at the cook. "Hell, I'd bet a day's pay the old fool don't even remember what to do with anything such as that," he groused. He fished a pipe and smoking tobacco from his shirt pocket. "Hell, a week's pay!" "He asked first," Homer said around a tough chunk of stewed deer meat. "And I told him first." "He'll probably sniff all the smell right off it." Griff glared in the cook's direction while tamping his pipe. But he didn't stare directly at the elderly gent because he, too, knew how slab-headed it would be to alienate the only man in camp who handed out the butter and beans. And venison stew. "Greedy old bastard." Homer grunted noncommittally. While he ate, Homer noticed others around the tent lingering an unusually long time over supper, and casting occasional but significant glances his way as they fired up their own smokes. Lately, most of the talk around the camp concerned the upcoming move to the next valley downriver to the south. The boss wanted to be finished up with the current cut and settled in at the new site by the time the first snows flew. Picking up and moving the entire operation never got any easier no matter how many times the crew did it. But tonight, Homer knew the men had a different conversation topic in mind. Finishing the last of the stew chunks, and sopping the remaining gravy with what was left of his cornbread before washing it all down with a final gulp of coffee, Homer came to his feet and walked to the center of the tent. Every eye in the smoke-shrouded cookshack was on him when he held his exhausted arms innocently out at his sides. "I haven't seen the letter or the girl yet," he announced, raising his voice. He lowered his arms and turned to nod at the cook. "But wasn't supper damn good?" The old cook returned the nod with a face-splitting grin and shoved the taller of his two grime-covered helpers toward the tables where dishes were piled up and waiting for whatever washing they'd get. A tall guy in the back stood up, spat on the floor, and dragged a sleeve across his mouth. "What's in it," he asked bluntly. "The letter, not the woman." "Hell, that ain't none of your business," Griff barked before Homer could answer. "It's just between Homer, here, and whoever sent it to him." Taking as much pride in their independence as in their blade work, loggers generally considered themselves more than capable of speaking for themselves. Even though Homer allowed it, because he considered such silly unwritten rules of protocol downright inane - or he would have if he'd ever heard the word inane and knew what it meant - this blatant breech of etiquette set off a round of muttered discussion all over the room. "When did you let Griff start doing your talking for you, Choate?" another oversized man finally asked sarcastically from Homer's left. "When he moved his soogan to your end of the bunkhouse?" Homer's face hardened. He was as widely known for his affable nature as he was for the meticulous personal habits he learned at his dear departed mother's knee. But it was also a quietly acknowledged fact around the camps that Homer Choate was a man who didn't put up with any spiteful foolishness out of anyone. Not anyone. He aimed a frosty glare at the speaker. "What are you saying, Jabo?" he asked softly. Jabo looked around for support, and found none. "I-uh-" "Dammit, Jabo, you know damn good and well I moved my bedroll to that German's bunk after he got his fool self killed just so's I could get shed of the stink of your damn nasty feet," Griff roared. "It's only by happenstance that Homer's bunk is down there by the window, too." Several of the men nodded at each other over this. "Hell, I'd have moved to that bunk myself if it was me that knew the damn German was dead first," another man said, chuckling. "But Griff beat me to it." He shook his head in wonderment. "You'd think a body'd get used to a stink like them damn feet by and by, but it ain't happened yet." Three or four other loggers began offering similar opinions on Jabo's personal foot odor problem. Jabo cussed Griff, then Homer, then everyone else in sight, which met with a lively shouted round of coarse rebuttals. Content to let the men wrangle over the stench of Jabo's feet, and forget about what potentially pleasant feminine smells an unexpected letter from parts unknown might or might not hang onto after being handled and sniffed a few times, Homer wordlessly extracted himself from the crowd and quickly left the tent, pulling a knitted wool cap from a back pocket and fitting it over his shaggy scalp on the way out. Ignoring a sudden racket of furniture crashing in the room behind him Homer gazed toward the camp foreman's private quarters in a lean-to nailed almost as an afterthought to the sidewall of the main office shanty. No lights showed in Big Bull's single glass window, so Homer decided to wait until morning before picking up the letter. With a new girl in camp, interrupting the boss was an even worse idea than irritating the cook; the cook couldn't order a man to set a nitro charges in the crook of a stubborn double-trunk fat pine that was likely as not to blow the minute the man slid dirtside. So Homer picked up his towel from the wash shed and sat on a boulder beside the river awhile before going to bed. Before breakfast the next morning, as a few of the men were nursing last night's various fist-induced cuts and contusions - the kind often referred to as logger's smallpox around the mountain - Homer walked over to see if the foreman was up yet. He was, but the woman wasn't anywhere in sight. Homer slipped the thick crumpled envelope into a shirt pocket, thanked the Bull, stole a last quick peek around for the girl, and went to eat. With the supply wagon coming just yesterday, the cook had a big skillet of scrambled eggs to go with the usual bacon, grits and coffee. Instead of ripping open the envelope right away, Homer enjoyed a leisurely breakfast. When he finished, an expectant silence fell over the room while everyone watched him fish the letter from his pocket. He'd already noted how wrinkled the envelope was, but fingering it again he noticed there was something more than just a letter inside. Instead of a return address on the outside, "Hawkins County, Tennessee" was scrawled in the upper left corner in a shaky hand; and his name, along with the words "Gone West," was more or less centered on the front. The stamp had been cancelled so many times and in so many places he didn't even try to figure the route it made across the country to end up in his hands. But he was amazed. In fact, before this he'd have bet hard money that such a feat as locating him after so many years was downright impossible for a living person, much less a lifeless letter. Thumbing it open, he looked up at the other loggers and halfway shrugged. "I think it's from my Aunt Celia," he announced. "My mother's sister. She's the only one I know where it looks to have come from." This set off a round of quietly heated debate among the men, with two or three of them grudgingly handing over money to two or three others. Inside was a short note written in the same hand as that on the envelope, and something wrapped inside another scrap of blank paper. Homer read through the letter, then read it again. He drew a deep breath and lowered his head. "What the hell is it, Choate?" someone barked. "My pa died," Homer said. "'Bout five years back." "Oh." The logger drained his coffee mug and came to his feet. "Well, I aim to get me a good look at that woman before work." He started to leave, when Griff pointed at the other item and said, "What's in there, Homer?" The man going to get a look at the woman stopped and sat back down. "The letter says it's my inheritance," Homer said. "It's all that was left after the old man's debts were settled, and it'll be all I ever get from him." Griff could hardly contain his excitement. "Well, what is it?" he asked, shaking his finger at the wrapped mystery. "What's so special about it to come all this way?" Homer held it for a moment, then slowly unrolled the paper. Silently, the men watched his hands in spellbound anticipation. Homer knew, of course, that time really didn't slow down while his fingers worked with the wrapping - and the men just seemed motionless because they wanted to know so badly what had come to him from back home - but skinning off the packaging, he wouldn't have sworn to it in court. Finally, part of the object appeared, and he ripped away the rest of the paper. Inside the wrapping was a spoon. A plain steel spoon with a rust-spotted handle. Homer stared, thinking, remembering; desperately trying to locate in his mind some point of familiar connection with the nondescript flatware. But it was a complete stranger to him. He'd never seen this spoon before in his life. "Damn," he breathed. Someone slapped a meaty hand on a table. "Aw hell," the logger said peevishly, "I'm going to look at that woman, myself." Grumbling, and oddly subdued after battling so fervently over the mysterious letter just last night, all the men stood to leave. "I think I'll go try to get a look at her too," Homer said, coming to his feet and leaving the spoon on the table. "There's nothing to see here." He tossed the envelope to the cook on the way out. On the job, most of the loggers seemed to go out of their way to mention the spoon as often as they could work it into conversation. By the end of the day, they were referring to everything from broadaxes to crosscut saws to heel hooks to topping rigs as spoons, and laughing like they were the first to think of it; especially when Homer was anywhere nearby. Homer was more annoyed than outright angry by the crew's digs. Men like these needed an occasional release like this, he knew, and it was harmless enough. But he was livid with his father. A spoon? And not a very good one at that? The vicious old blackguard must be enduring hell's agonies a little easier just knowing how he'd thrown still another slap in the face of his only offspring. At supper, while the other men were elbowing their way past the cook's serving table, Homer took more than his usual time cleaning up at the wash shed near the outhouses. Tossing away a pan of dirty water, he refilled the shallow tin basin with fresh water from the handy rain barrel and dunked his face. The icy shock helped focus the point of his irritation. He didn't blame the others for grabbing this chance to break up the endless tedium. Such opportunities came rare and valued in remote timber camps. But, damn, why couldn't it have been Griff or Jabo, or one of the others who got such a sillyass letter so that Homer Choate could get in on the fun, too? "I hope it was good news," a female voice suddenly said. "Wh-What?" Homer shook water from his beard and, in the dim twilight, made out the figure of a young woman standing near the toilet a few yards away. "Your letter," she said, moving toward him. "I brought it up from Spokane yesterday." "Spokane, huh?" "Yes. That's where I live." She sounded proud. "Nice town. Lots of opportunities there." "Ah." This was odd, Homer thought. Who the hell knew he was anywhere near Spokane? "How did you get ‘hold of it," he asked. "The lumber company was sending it on the wagon, and that awful driver was drinking most of the way." She sounded faintly angry about that. "It fell out of his pocket once, so I took it and kept it safe. I hope it brought you good news." "How did you know it was mine?" She shrugged. "I saw you leaving the office with it this morning. Your name is Homer Choate," she went on, leaning against a support post. "I read it on the envelope. I know I wasn't supposed to, but it was such a tedious ride on the wagon. I hope it was all right." "Ah, yeah, that was okay," Homer said, wiping his face with the towel he'd picked up at his bunk while the other men were tending to whatever cleanup habits they had, if any. He forcibly restrained himself from asking if she might have sat on the envelope at any time during the trip. "You didn't hear what was in it?" "No. I've been inside all day." Deciding not to pursue that line of conversation either, Homer hung his towel over a rail to dry. "It was my...well, my inheritance," he said. "Oh, that's good," she said. "Unless it was from someone you..." Her voice trailed off, and neither seemed to know what to say for a long moment. Homer finally broke the awkward silence. "It was a spoon." "A spoon?" "My inheritance. It was a spoon." She hesitated thoughtfully for a moment. "In that case," she said slowly, "it must have been very valuable." "It was just a piece of junk I've never even seen before." She thought about this, and within a few seconds Homer saw the rising moon glinting off her teeth as she smiled. She might be a *****, he decided, but as least she was a smart ***** who saw the mocking irony of the situation without needing to have it explained to her. "My, that's terrible," she said, chuckling faintly and moving closer. Suddenly, he caught a faint whiff of delicate floral perfume on the evening breeze, and remembered just whose woman this was. "Aw, it happens, I guess," he said, glancing toward the cook tent. "Well, if you'll excuse me, Ma-am, I reckon I'll go on in for supper." "Surely." She reached out a hand to brush one of his before turning away. "I'm sorry for your loss. Goodnight, Homer Choate." For some reason, Homer felt strangely less irritated by the damn fool spoon doings watching her stroll toward the Big Bull's place. It wasn't until he entered the cook tent that he realized he really should have offered to walk her home. Maybe next time, if there ever was a next time, he would. "How was the envelope," he asked the cook, sticking out his bowl. The old man plopped a big helping of beans, swimming with what smelled to Homer like highly seasoned bear meat, into the bowl and frowned. "Middling," he said, shaking his head and handing over a couple of fresh-baked biscuits. "Middling?" "Yeah. If it had any more smell you wouldn't have give it to me, and it if had any less I wouldn't have took it. Still, it's better than anything else I've come across in a long, long time. In fact," he said, wrinkling his bulbous old nose and sniffing at the food-heavy air, "I b'lieve I can still make it out just a bit." He dragged a long lungful of air past his hairy nostrils and frowned, puzzled. "Fact is," he said, sniffing again, "I'm smelling it even stronger right now. Hmmm. Ain't that a wonderment." "It's a wonderment, all right," Homer said, hoping the old man's nose wouldn't target in on the hand that had just brushed acquaintance with the hand of the woman outside. He walked to his regular spot and, studiously looking anywhere in the tent but at the place he'd left the spoon lying on the table after breakfast, reached out at random to grab a fork. But when he looked down, he had the slightly bent handle of the spoon in his fist. He started to toss it back when he noticed how juicy the beans were tonight. "Hey Choate," Jabo yelled, "got a spoon I can borrow?" Thunderous laughter broke out all over the tent. Even Griff was showing a wide yellow-toothed grin. Something inside Homer changed at that instant. Something he didn't quite understand, but something significant. He smiled back sardonically. "Nope," he said, holding the spoon high. "I've only got this one, and you're not getting it." "Damn you, Choate!" "I guess." Ignoring the others, Homer hesitated for a long moment before dipping the spoon into his bowl. Then he paused another few seconds before taking a bite of beans into his mouth. The bearmeat-seasoned beans were tasty enough, but the spoon tasted awful. He wiped it on his bandana, and briefly considered handing it over to Jabo anyway. But he dunked it in his coffee and wiped it on his shirt, and it tasted all right for the second bite. And the third. "Can I borrow ‘at spoon when you get done?" Griff asked. "This fork just don't cut the bark with these beans." For some reason he couldn't explain, Homer didn't want Griff, or anyone else, handling his inheritance, either. "No." "How come?" "Because it's mine." Homer shrugged and took another bite. "All mine," he said, chewing. "Now that's just being cussed and stingy!" "Maybe," Homer said. "But that's just how it is." Grumbling, Griff came snippily to his feet and, taking his bowl and fork, moved to another table. Homer was tempted to call Griff back. But the more he thought about it, the more he decided that he owed these men nothing. He had nothing particular against any of them - no animosity, or even hard feelings. But he'd also never gone out of his way to cultivate their affection, and didn't see any particular need to start now. Finishing his beans, Homer wiped the spoon on his bandanna and dropped it into his pocket. On the way out, he told to cook to pass the envelope on to Griff whenever he was good and done with it. Instead of heading back to the bunk shanty, Homer walked toward the dark wash shed to pick up his towel. A now familiar scent told him someone was already there. "'Evening again, Ma-am," Homer said. "My, it's Homer Choate." "Yes'm." She chuckled. "My name is Susan," she said. "You can call me that. I forgot my shawl earlier, and just came back for it." "Miss Susan." He removed his wool cap. "I'm getting my towel. But I'd be proud to see you to your door. Uh, if you've finished your personal chores, that is." She hesitated for a long moment, then nodded. "I think that would be nice." He dropped her off a hundred or so feet away at Big Bull's office, nodded goodnight, and went back to his own bed. Over the next days, Homer became increasingly stingy, as Griff often described it, with the spoon. It got so that almost everyone in the crew first asked, then demanded to use the spoon for one fool thing or another. They became more and more insistent by the day. One man wanted to use it as a tiny shovel and plant potatoes in the cook's truck garden, another thought it would be good for feeding whisky to his pet raccoon, and they all asked to stir their coffee with it. After his shift one evening, Homer was walking back to the camp when three men stopped him in the woods. "We want the spoon," one of them growled. "Now." Because he still had his axe slung over his shoulder - he was taking it to the blacksmith for sharpening - and they were all unarmed, Homer was able to convince the would-be road agents how robbing him of his meager inheritance would be more trouble, and pain, than it could possibly be worth. But it was a close thing. The cook tent was tense and silent at supper that night, and Homer used his spoon slowly and deliberately so that everyone could see it. He believed that the next confrontation over the damn spoon would end with someone getting hurt, but he had no intentions of avoiding it. He got through supper with no open hostilities directed his way, though Griff did frown at him once. "Stubborn is what you are, Homer Choate," Griff snarled. "Just stubborn." "I reckon so." Like the angry eyes of their owners, smoking pipes were glowering sullen resentment all over the dining tent when Homer walked out into the crisp evening air. Summer wouldn't last much longer, he idly thought, trying to put the men and their foolish jealousy from his mind. Not caring to be around anyone else at the moment, he started toward the wash shed to get his towel. Maybe he'd watch the moon come up down by the river. But he sensed someone under the shed before he saw a familiar figure there. "Evening again, Ma'am," he said, standing off a few feet and waiting to be invited closer. "That is, Miss Susan." "Homer Choate." She struck a match and lit a lamp hanging from the tin shed roof, and turned to face him. In the light, he saw she was a few years older than he would have earlier guessed. "And it's just Susan. I was washing up a few things for my trip. I'm going back home tomorrow." For some reason, this saddened Homer. And the sadness irritated him because he knew it should never have come up to begin with. After all, who was this woman to him? Just another of the nameless female playpretties the Big Bull brought in occasionally, tired of, then offered to the crew before bringing in another one a few weeks later. This time, though, the boss had kept her all for himself. She must be truly special. "I-I hope you have a good trip," he said. "I just came for my towel again." "Oh yes, here it is." She handed it over. "That's a nice one. I wish my brother would keep his towels this nice." "Your brother?" Homer really wasn't interested in discussing a prostitute's close kin, but she seemed to want to talk. And he found he enjoyed hearing the sound of her voice. "I guess some old boys can be like that." "Yes," she agreed. "I keep telling him that as the boss he has a responsibility to set a good example for you men, but he just doesn't seem to think very much about it." "Yeah, well there's not too many-" The strength in Homer's legs, so trustworthy for so long, nearly deserted him when he fully realized what she said. "The boss?" He gaped, astounded, toward the foreman's office. "The Big Bull is your brother?" She nodded. "Yes. Usually, he brings his clothing to Spokane, where I make sure they're cleaned and all the holes are patched at least once a year. But this summer he said he just couldn't get away because the camp is moving." Homer nodded politely. Still stunned by the news that Susan wasn't a bought-and-paid-for woman after all, he wasn't sure he trusted his mouth to form coherent words just now. But Susan kept talking and didn't seem to notice. "So I've been stuck inside all week, sewing, instead of enjoying these beautiful mountain views," she went on. "But I did hear about the troubles you've been having with your inheritance. I hope everything is all right." "That? Aw, that's nothing." "It certainly sounds serious." "Naw." "Good," she said. "I'd hate to be back home knowing there was trouble up here." "It's nothing to worry about off in Spokane." Hoping to disguise his real interest in her home status, Homer absently rubbed at his beard and looked off toward the river. "Besides, your husband and young'uns will take up most of your worry time. Won't they?" "Husband and..." She shook her head. "Heaven's, no," she said, smiling. "I don't have either. Maybe it's just a silly female notion, but I can't help believing that a man ought to be able to look after himself and his concerns before I can trust him to help look after me and mine." She sighed deeply. "My brother tells me such a thing is not possible, and he may be right. So far, I just haven't found those qualities in a man." Considering his own mother and the shiftless, hateful man she'd settled for in a hardscrabble life cut way too short by too much hard work and too many devastating ailments, Homer merely nodded. He'd been thinking about the old man more since that damn spoon arrived than he had in the previous fourteen years, he realized, and he didn't like it. But he did like hearing Susan talk. Homer was happy to listen until she was ready to return to her brother's digs, then he boldly asked to walk her home again. She accepted again. At her door, she thanked him for his company and gallant escort with another brush of her hand against his, and Homer walked away even sadder that she was leaving. On the way to the shanty shack and bed, four men jumped him from the darkness.
When Homer levered his eyes open early the next morning, he still had the spoon clenched tight in his blood-crusted fist. Jabo and another man lay sprawled a few feet away on the hard-packed dirt, and a third sat against a tree nursing a swollen and possibly broken jaw; silently glaring hate in Homer's direction. When Homer saw all three were still breathing, he came stiffly and painfully to his feet and limped toward the bunkhouse. There, the fourth bushwhacker lay slumped across Jabo's smelly bed. Instead of hitting his own bunk, Homer pocketed the spoon and walked out into the early morning sun, headed for the wash shed. Damn these fool loggers, he thought. Damn the vicious old fool who'd maliciously cursed him with such a ridiculous inheritance, and damn that damned spoon! Cleaning himself up, being especially careful with a swollen left eye, Homer watched as a loaded wagon pulled around the side of the blacksmith's shop and up to the cook shack, where the cook's two sleepy-eyed helpers began unloading the next week's provisions. It must've pulled in sometime during the night, Homer guessed. The odor of frying bacon hung heavy in the clear mountain air when the driver climbed back onto the seat of the empty wagon and slapped the horses into motion. He stopped at Big Bull's place. Homer saw Susan and the boss emerge with her luggage. The driver began loading it. Then, though he'd never in his life be able to explain to himself just why, Homer flipped his towel across his shoulder and walked over to the wagon. He climbed into the driver's box. "I'd be proud to drive you home, Miss Susan," he said, holding out a hand. She waved her frowning brother aside and studied Homer's bruised face for a long, silent moment, noting the cuts and abrasions on his fists and his torn, dirty clothing. And the towel over his shoulder. "Do you still have your inheritance?" she finally asked. "Right here in my pocket." "In that case, Homer Choate," she said, smiling for the first time and taking his hand, "I think it would be nice if you drove me home." Homer motioned for the driver to climb in the back and, not bothering to stop at his bunk for any of his personal belongings - there wasn't anything among them that meant anything to him anyway - he clucked the horses into motion and left the logging camp behind. Halfway down the mountain, Susan wordlessly slid close to him and gently hooked an arm through his. She'd been right about Spokane. Within a day of arriving with only the clothes he wore, his towel, and a rusty spoon in his pocket, Homer hired on as river crew ramrod for a large lumber mill. Within a few years, with Susan and their boy looking on, he was made a full partner in the company. Inside a couple of decades he was the sole owner of the outfit, and he never showed his face in a timber camp again. Homer hung onto his inheritance for many years before deciding to pass it on to his own son. For Homer, that spoon, that damned rusty spoon, had closed out his misspent past as effectively as January 1, 1900 closed out the previous century, and started him toward an endlessly gratifying future with Susan. In time, he came to find himself almost grateful to the old man for it. Almost. And in all their joyous years together, though he was tempted many times, Homer never once asked Susan if she'd ever sat on the letter his inheritance came in.
Copyright 2008 Don Chance |
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| Last Updated ( Friday, 29 February 2008 ) |
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