Comes a Time for Burning (8 page)

Chapter Ten

“Hullo!” Huckla called out as Thomas approached. “You lost, Doc?”

Thomas didn’t say anything until he had ridden right up to the sluice gate. The gelding swung his head down and gulped water. Thomas sat quietly, regarding Huckla and his friend, a man whose left hand was missing all the fingers at the first joint. Huckla’s bright grin widened. “Damn, you got a day for it. Ain’t it something?”

“Yes, it is,” Thomas said. “Do you remember nurse Auerbach’s instructions, Mr. Huckla? And my instructions?” A momentary look of puzzlement slipped across the young man’s face. “I thought we had been quite clear when we asked you to keep that hand clean and dry.”

Huckla pulled the bandaged hand out of the water. “This cold water feels mighty good,” he said, “Don’t see how that can hurt.”

Thomas saw that the original wrappings and splint had been replaced by what appeared to be a portion of an old shirt. He looked out across the storage pond and sighed.

“Feels good, must be good,” Huckla chirped. “That’s what my ma always said, bless her soul.”

What kind of logic was this, Thomas wondered, that replaced a perfectly good and perfectly
clean
splint and bandage with filthy flannel? Why was it necessary to look as if tending the injury was such a trifle?

The sun glinted off the water, and for a moment he had visions of the swarm of interesting things lurking there, waiting to examine Huckla’s hand more closely. It would be instructive to collect a vial of the water and examine it under the microscope.

“It’s all right,” Huckla said, seeing the doctor’s vexed expression. “It don’t hurt none, Doc.”

“It will, my friend,” Thomas replied. “And when it does, it is going to be much more difficult—and more painful—to treat. I hope you appreciate that.” The open, engaging expression on Huckla’s face hinted that he didn’t appreciate his danger at all. Thomas shifted in the saddle, surveying the pond and the gate structure.

“So, what happens here?”

“Well, me and Barney here are waitin’,” Huckla offered. “It’s a hell of a thing to be paid for just waitin’ in the sun, don’t you think?”

“And for what do you wait?”

Huckla withdrew his hand from the soak and stood up. “See, all them logs are comin’ into the pond, here. And when the boss man is ready to start sendin’ logs down the flume, all them logs you see floatin’ there will go through this gate here. Me and Barney count ’em when that happens. We both know our numbers pretty good. End of the day, we write it all down.” He shrugged. “Don’t know just
why
we do all that, but that’s what Paul Bertram wants, so that’s what he gets.”

“What all happened to Sonny Malone?” Barney asked. “I heard he got hung up, and that he’s down at your place.”

“We have him in the clinic, yes.”

“He going to make it?”

“We hope so.” Apparently he didn’t feign sufficient optimism, because Barney’s eyebrow lifted skeptically.

“Not likely, though, eh?”

“Probably not likely.” He stood in the stirrups, stretching. Fats took a last guzzle, sensing that something was about to be asked of him. “The famous flume,” he said. He looked down the serpentine path that the wooden flume traced through the timber, sweeping in graceful curves to avoid terrain.

“Somethin’, ain’t it,” Huckla said. “I’m bettin’ a man could straddle one of them sticks and ride it all the way down to the chute.”

“Another dollar bet?” Thomas offered.

“I’m thinkin’ on it.” Despite the wide, silly grin, Buddy Huckla was completely serious.

Barney nodded downhill. “You follow it along for about two miles…that about right, Buddy? Follow it along and you’ll come to the headlands where they got the chute project. And
that’s
something to see, Doc.” He angled his hand downward sharply. “Logs tip from the flume into the chute. Seventy-five degrees down for sixteen hundred and seventy-nine feet. Logs run so fast they smoke. That’s what the engineers say.”

“Bet a man could ride that, too,” Huckla said.

“Make it for more than a dollar if you do, Mr. Huckla. Gentlemen, I’ll be on my way. I don’t look forward to riding off the bluff after dark.”

“Good luck to you, Doc,” Barney said. “Down about a mile, you’ll come to a log deck, where they’re workin’ right along the flume. Don’t go gettin’ in the way. One of them sticks will smash you flat. Can’t have that.” He nodded at Fats, who was dozing, eyelids at half mast. “Smart horse you got yourself there.”

“He doesn’t spook,” Thomas said. “He gives me time to think.”

“Nothin’ wrong in that. Look, there’s a photographer workin’ down at the chute this afternoon. You’ll see him, too. Everybody wants their pichure took. Maybe he’ll get you, too.”

“Obliged,” Thomas said.

“You’ll find Bertram down there, if you was lookin’ for him. Stick close to the trail along the flume. That’s the safest way.”

“I shall.” Fats started to saunter down the slick slope under the flume’s trestle, and Thomas called back to Buddy Huckla, “Someone will be at the clinic this evening, Mr. Huckla, should you decide to have the hand looked at.”

“It’s fine, Doc. You done good with it.”

As he rode down hill with the flume now above his head, Thomas could hear the gentle gurgle of the water and the steady drizzle of leaks pattering on the duff under the trestle. When the sluice gates were open, the rampaging water and logs would be a sight…and he could imagine Buddy Huckla trying to find hand and toe holds on the slick spruce giant as it careened through the flume.

In a mile, the valley first narrowed and then opened up. He could see the log deck, an area where the tract of timber was close enough to the flume that logs could be dragged there by steam donkey and cable on simple skid trails.

Up above, another spar towered, rigged with cables that ran every which way on the slope. The loggers were as ants, swarming through the timber and on the hillside. For some moments, Thomas watched in fascination, then urged Fats onward. The valley narrowed again, the trees thinned, and he could see the brilliant horizon far ahead. As he rode toward the headland, it was with a sense of relief, a sense of release from the dark, rank timber behind him. Below, the waters of Jefferson Inlet were cut by half a dozen ships, and he could see far to the north, almost to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

To the south, looking like a small wart on the end of the hook of land, Bert Schmidt’s sawmill dominated the inlet, smoke from the chip burner and the various boilers a thick plume that drifted across the spit. A bluff domed just high enough to hide Port McKinney from view. Thomas started to turn away, then stopped.

He stood tall in the stirrups, squinting against the bright sun. Bert and Carlotta Schmidt lived in a comfortable two-story home on a rise above the mill.

From where Thomas sat on his horse, he could see that the plume of bluish-white smoke from the various burners drifted east, out over the water. But there were times, he assumed, when the plume drifted elsewhere…or hung over the quiet countryside like a flannel blanket. A nose not numbed to the aroma—the evergreen bouquet—would be able to identify every species of wood burned.

“Of course,” Thomas said aloud. When Carlotta Schmidt had journeyed to Portland, her sinuses had finally enjoyed blissful relief from the continual smoke, flushed out by fresh sea breezes. Back home, it was only a matter of time before she was assaulted anew.

Thomas left the headland and returned to the flume, following a long curve as it skirted a series of rock ledges. He did not see the chute at first, but did see a dozen men gathered near the last sluice gate in the flume. Behind the men towered an enormous deck of logs, hundreds of sticks harvested, Thomas supposed, near at hand during the construction. In the flume itself, he could see a string of logs, nose to tail, pushing against the gate like cattle waiting to enter a pasture.

Three of the men stood on a mammoth log, so huge that Thomas couldn’t imagine it floating down the flume like a great, cylindrical railroad car. The rest of the crew was gathered here and there in an interesting group as a slight fellow behind a bulky tripod and camera orchestrated them.

Dismounting, Thomas led Fats the last few yards, waiting patiently while the photographer took what appeared to be his final exposure. Finished at last, the photographer tipped his cap, and the men climbed down. One of them Thomas recognized immediately. Paul Bertram said something to the photographer, and then made his way toward the young physician.

“You’re out and about.” Bertram extended his hand.

“A perfect afternoon,” Thomas replied.

“Givin’ Kinsey here a show.” The foreman nodded at the photographer. “Sometimes I think we got us more photographers in the timber than we do loggers. Could have used him this mornin’, don’t you think?” He started to smile, then turned serious. “You brung word about Sonny?”

“The word is not good,” Thomas said. “If he survives the day, I’ll be surprised. The nurses are with him constantly, but there’s nothing to be done. The brain has been concussed, and there is nothing to be done for that.”

“Just too damn bad.”

“I rode out first to visit the camp…I was interested to chat with Buddy Huckla.”

“Useless as tits on a boar hog,” Bertram muttered.

“The surgery on his hand was successful, but he’s in the process of undoing all the good work.” Thomas waved a hand up-flume. “He’s at the holding pond, soaking his hand in the filthy water.”

“What did you want him to do?”

The question surprised Thomas, but he could see that the timber foreman was genuine in his curiosity.

“To keep it dry and clean, for one,” the physician said. “It was splinted, and should stay that way until the bones and ligaments have a fair chance to mend. As it is, the young man is working as hard as he can to win an amputation—if infection doesn’t kill him first.”

Bertram frowned and looked off into the distance. “Well, he’s going to do what he’s going to do. I put him on count to keep him out of trouble. He’ll be all right. Come on,” Bertram said, beckoning. “Tie off that horse and let me show you.” He led Thomas to the precipice. Beyond the last flume gate, a simple three log trough, one log contoured as the bottom, larger logs laid along the sides, plummeted with the terrain, a frightening drop to the water far below.

“You ready now?” the foreman shouted, and the photographer waved a hand. “Don’t know how he’s going to do it, but that’s his business.” The photographer had moved his bulky camera to the very lip of the bluff.

Thomas watched in astonishment as the iron sluice valve was spun open with a burst of escaping water. Loggers with heavy cant hooks urged the mammoth log along in its own gush of water. It floated until its weight tipped into the chute, and then gravity took over. With a howl of its own, the log shot away, accelerating wildly on the steep initial section, its passage slicked by the spray of water. One after another, logs tipped into the chute.

He hadn’t counted the seconds, but the logs became a smoking blur, and seconds later smashed into the inlet far below, sending geysers of water high into the air. By the time they hit the water, the multi-ton logs were but tiny, black dashes against the exploding water. What the camera could record was a mystery to Thomas. Certainly nothing was holding still for the sensitive film.

“There’s been talk,” Bertram explained, “that you could ride a log down the flume. I hear that every day. And you know, someday some crazy youngster with more nerve than brains is going to try it.”

“We can hope not,” Thomas said.

Bertram adopted a thoughtful stance, one hand on his bristly jaw. “You know, a man might save himself a hell of a long hike to town by hookin’ a ride down the chute. I hear a man in the Klamath tried it on the Pokagama, longer’n this.” Bertram grinned at his own jest. “Schoolyard dares, Doc. That’s the way I figure it. These are good boys. Work hard, play hard. Sometimes drink too much.” He shrugged.

“I’m planning to talk to Mr. Schmidt about the possibility of a telephone up on the lease.”

Bertram’s expression went blank. “How’s that?”

“I’ve given it a lot of thought. If we had a central location up here on the lease where a ring could summon help…imagine the time to be saved.”

“A telephone…”

“Exactly. The cities have exchanges now. Both Seattle and Tacoma, and more coming every day. I spoke with an engineer from the company just a few weeks ago. It would be possible.”

“I’ve heard of ’em,” Bertram said. “Don’t give it much account. You’re sayin’ that a man gets himself hurt somehow, and we find this telephone?”

“Exactly. In fact, this wonderful chute gives us a route up the headland for the wires. How hard could it be to run poles right up the route cleared for the chute? Much of the work has already been done.”

“Somebody gets hurt, we just take care of ’em here, or find a way into town,” Bertram said. “You know that.”

“And that’s what kills more often than not.”

“You think so?”

“I do. Most certainly I do.”

“Huh. The telephone wouldn’t have done Sonny Malone a damn bit of good.”

“Not that particular case, but useful for other things as well, I should think. Mr. Schmidt requires a fair accounting of the logs that leave the headlands, does he not? Huckla is proud to be counting, back at the pond.”

“Schmidt’s got himself some new accountants,” Bertram said. “Always countin’ things. That’s what they do. Number of logs that leave the timber, number into the chute, number down at the inlet. Number at the mill. Numbers, numbers, numbers.”

“Well, then. The mill would not have to wait for that information. The telephone could make short work of such.”

Bertram shook his head slowly. “Used to be a man went into the woods with an axe and a cross-cut, and earned his way one tree at a time. Now we got to count this, and count that.” He grimaced. “Anyways, you do what you got to do, Doc.” He pointed to the north. “Don’t know how you came up the hill, but you cut off that way a bit and you’ll find the lease trail. Take you down to the inlet road. That’s the way your driver come up earlier. Be easier going.”