The Lumberjack

by Erik Martin Willén

  “This is getting better and better. You don’t by any chance happen to have a robot that can cook and clean, do you?”

  “Sure do. Name’s Claire. I’ll have the little missy come up and do that for you anytime you want,” Frank said smiling.

  He laughed to his own joke while trying to figure out the remote, his tongue sticking out between his lips. He was completely concentrated on an instruction manual for the thing. Christina laughed out loud, knowing Frank wouldn’t dare refer to Claire as a robot in her presence, and promised herself never to mention it to anyone.

  Frank finally hit the right button on the remote, and the man outside opened the door and walked in. There was a minor commotion when whoever it was changed his footwear to slippers in the airlock entry. Then the door opened, and a good-looking middle-aged man walked in. He looked at the dogs that lay on either side by the door in silence, guarding silently, patiently but still alert. They only stared at him, and neither was breathing heavily. When they recognized him, they got up and charged him, showering him with slobbery dog-kisses, barking and growling happily. Frank came to his rescue while Christina kept back, as always being suspicious and shy whenever meeting someone new.

  “Robert, good to see you again,” Frank said while shaking his hand. Nugget and Hunter moved away and sat down.

  “May I?” asked Robert, removing a large bone from his denim pants pocket.

  “By all means, get them out of the house.”

  Robert tossed the bone outside, but neither dog moved; instead, they stretched their necks toward Frank, waiting patiently. He nodded his head in consent, smacking his tongue, and the two beasts went for the catch of the day. Frank hit the button on the remote, and the front door closed, leaving the sounds of two arguing dogs outside.

  A horrified Christina almost shouted, “Won’t they fight over it?”

  “Nope, they’ll just chase each other and eventually lie down and share the bone, believe it or not.” Frank gestured for Christina to move closer. “Christina, allow me to introduce a very dear friend to Claire and me. This is Robert Joffry, the caretaker of all our properties. He’s also the best lumberjack and precision tree-cutter in history.”

  Robert blushed from the introduction and looked down at his somewhat tight slippers. He’s shy, Christina thought as she reluctantly advanced, stopping a bit too far away from him while extending her hand. She had to bend forward to reach his, because he didn’t approach her whatsoever. He had a firm and strong grip, and to her surprise, a soft hand with perfect cuticles. His three days’ worth of stubble, mixed with dirt and dust, enhanced his sharp, clear blue eyes. He wore blue, washed-out and well-worn denim jeans that sat tight on his muscular legs, and a red-and-blue plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Typical lumberjack attire.

  His muscular forearms were tight, but the shirt hung loose—concealing a picture-perfect body, Christina suspected. He wore a large scuba watch turned to the inside of his right wrist, but otherwise no jewelry and no ring, or any markings from a ring. In his hand he held a dirty baseball cap—typical Southern manners—that was just about worn-out.

  When he looked up into Christina’s eyes, her heart seemed to somersault in her chest, and suddenly she lost her train of thought and didn’t hear what he said. She blushed like a schoolgirl as he said, “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

  After a moment, Robert looked at Frank for help, because obviously the woman holding his hand was mute.

  Christina was used to being in control of her life, and was very experienced at meeting fans, producers, and strangers in general. She almost always felt she had the upper hand, given her vast range of experience due to her work. Well, all that experience just went out the window with Robert. Her knees felt weak as rubber, and there were a bunch of stupid butterflies rattling around in her stomach. Finally, she stuttered, “N-nice, nice to meet me too…um, I mean, to meet you. Sorry!”

  Frank came to the rescue and laid his arm over Robert’s shoulder. “How ‘bout some coffee, buddy?”

  Robert and Christina, both feeling awkward and uncomfortable for some reason, nodded their heads in unison.

  Christina let the two men take the lead, not so much to be ladylike as because it gave her the opportunity to check out Robert’s rear end. It was perfect. Dude must be gay, she thought. Straight guys don’t come like this. She smiled at the thought, and just then the bastard had to turn around, saying something that, of course, she didn’t hear due to her acute lack of concentration. Christina blushed again as she realized that she’d been standing there staring at Robert’s ass with a grin on her face, and he had seen it. Oh, crap!

  Again, Robert had to repeat himself. “So, what do you think of this place, ma’am?”

  Completely at a loss for words, Christina just smiled widely and nodded her head. Again, Frank came to the rescue. “Christina how do you want your coffee?”

  “Black. Black will be fine.”

  “Great—my kinda gal! The only way to drink this magical brew.” He knew that was how she liked it, having served her earlier, but someone had to rescue this train wreck of a conversation before it derailed. “How’s the work going at River Crossing?” he asked Robert.

  “Almost finished, but I won’t be going back today with the storm coming.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that. Nasty weather this time of year.”

  “Storm?” Christina asked.

  “What you experienced last night was just the beginning, Christina,” Frank replied. “Weatherman’s been all over the news warning us about it. Don’t worry—this place is like a fortress, and if you need help, me or Robert are almost around the corner.”

  There was an awkward silence in the room. Through the kitchen window Christina could see the dogs tearing by, Hunter chasing his “brother,” but even though they were obviously barking there were no sound to be heard from them. The house was very well-built, more or less soundproof. When Frank saw her looking, he asked, “Would you like for me to leave one or both of my dogs?”

  “I couldn’t. Shouldn’t they be guarding your shop?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. We always got good old Winston.”

  Robert let out a quiet laugh.

  “What?” Frank sounded hurt, but then he smiled.

  Frank did most of the talking after that, while Robert nodded his head and Christina only-half listened as she tried to make eye contact with the silent man next to Frank. He didn’t say much. Maybe he was mostly mute after all.

  Half an hour later, Christina watched as Frank drove away in his blue truck, followed by Robert in his older, more beat-up white truck, with what look like a giant box in the rear with several small doors. Robert stopped by the gate and closed it; he didn’t look back, which she had hoped for.

  She stood there a long time after they had left, just staring and dreaming; and then she came to the realization that she had made an ass of herself in front of Robert. She blushed and shook her head at her own stupidity. What was it her mother used to say over and over when she was a child? Ah, yes: “You only get one chance to make a good first impression.” Boy, if only she had listened to her mother…

  Oh well, they should be back tomorrow to show her the lay of the land. She’d had enough for one day; besides, she’d felt completely naked without any make-up whatsoever when she’d met Robert. Normally she wouldn’t care, but now, for some reason, she did. Not too much make-up, mind you; just the perfect amount to bring out her best features, her cheeks and nose. Yes, tomorrow, Saturday, would be better.

  She looked at the sky and dark clouds now covering it. She felt some drizzle wafting in under the eaves, but decided that it wasn’t too bad for now. Her walk into town had been far worse. She went around the compound near the house, garage, and storage building. Perhaps the storage building could be turned into a stable? It more or less looked like one already.

  Everything was very well-built and perfectly organized. She would have to get her own whee
ls, but it could wait till Monday. This weekend, she would stay at her new place and relax. Having decided that, she walked towards the back of the house, stepped onto the enormous porch, and looked towards the horizon. Bad weather or not, the view was striking. She could literally see for miles. A valley with a large river lay far below, surrounded by more trees she ever had seen in one place before.

  A kayak with two people fighting the currents and rapids with their flashing paddles caught her attention. They were very far away at first, but approached at a very fast speed. She wished she had a pair of binoculars. Definitely professionals, she thought, observing the way they handled the kayak with ease, avoiding jagged and dangerous rocks. As they approached, she momentarily lost sight of them. She stepped closer to the edge of the wooden fence on the porch, which protected anyone from falling down the cliffside some three hundred feet below into the cold river. Now she could see and hear them; sounded like a man and a woman from their shouting and laughing. She looked at them a bit jealously.

  The drizzle turned into rain, so Christina went back toward the door. She had many things to do in terms of settling in before she hit the sack; maybe she’d open one of the bottle of wines that lay in the gift basket on the kitchen counter, and read a book or just watch the setting of the sun. After all, she did have the best seat in the house.

  Then a sudden gust of wind brought with a foul, awful stench. The birds stopped singing, and a creepy silence fell over the lodge, except for the eerie sigh the wind made while moving through the forest. Thicker, darker clouds had moved in, casting the area into darkness. Christina stood with her arms crossed, leaning on one of the wooden columns of the carport, still daydreaming and planning her future.

  Without any warning, the strange sensation that she was being watched came over her. She could feel the goosebumps prickle on her forearms, and a chill went down her spine, just as it had the other day when she had observed the clouds. Suddenly she felt very alone and vulnerable, and she immediately regretted not taking Frank up on the offer to keep one or both dogs with her. She immediately went inside the house and locked the door.

  Lightning tore through the dark sky, followed immediately by rumbling thunder. Mother Nature opened the clouds and broadsided the entire region with rain, and She didn’t hold back. The rain hit the ground hard, quickly churning the soil into a mud bath with droplets the size of cherries. Not long after, hailstones the size of golf balls began falling as well. The powerful wind sounded like a battle cry, protesting what humans had done to their world for centuries.

  This storm wasn’t taking any prisoners. Bushes and branches swayed and bent in the wind, and here and there trees broke or were pulled from the sodden ground, roots and all. Some branches flew long distances in the straight-line winds, turning the forest into a natural battleground.

  When the door opened, the powerful wind outside took hold of it and rammed it hard against a new guest hurrying inside the watering hole called The Lumberjack. As he stood there in the entrance, rubbing his nose, the sound of Billy Ray Cyrus’s classic Achy Breaky Heart wailed from the speakers. As the song hit its famous musical bridge, the big man everyone referred to as Little Noise charged through the entrance toward the storm like a bulldozer, pissed beyond belief, cursing up a storm, using all of his somewhat limited vocabulary in surprisingly inventive curses. The unfortunate man who had just survived the heavy door was still running a hand over his face, checking for damage, so he didn’t see the bulldozer storming out the door. The 6’10”, 300-pound figure charged straight ahead, as relentless as a ballistic missile, and for a second time in seconds the other man was rammed by a powerful force. He stumbled backwards through the door, off the porch, and onto the muddy ground. There he lay in the muck while the rain pounded him. Two young women holding newspapers over their heads—which protected them from the wet about as well as a surfboard does a surfer—scuttled towards the entrance so they could escape the hideous weather ruining their war-paint and skimpy outfits. However, the interaction between the two men did catch their attention.

  It took Joseph a few moments to realize the humiliating damage he’d just suffered, and it didn’t help that the bouncers were laughing; and to make matters worse, the girls were giggling as they dug in their purses for their IDs. Snarling, Joseph got to his feet and cursed the moron who had pushed him out the door. He wiped at the mud still on his face as he rose, vowing to end the fat bastard’s life. After all, the girls were both very attractive; time to save some face. When Joseph finished cleaning the mud from his eyes, he looked down at his brand-new denim jeans and his once-polished cowboy boots, which only compounded his anger. But when he saw his Stetson lying in a puddle, he became infuriated. His new shirt and jacket had been ruined, not to mention his watch, the one he only used when he dressed up.

  He clenched his fist, psyching himself up to annihilate the fat-ass that had done him wrong. Trembling with rage, Joseph, who considered himself unnaturally intelligent, said the most degrading thing one could ever say to any lumberjack anywhere. He didn’t know if this idiot was one, but he suspected it from the stink that caught in his nostrils, an aroma concocted of sweat, dust, diesel, and tree sap.

  “You fucking brush ape!” he snarled.

  Of all the bad things one could label a lumberjack, that was just about the worse. Joseph saw a pair of large boots appear in front of him; and, his head still pointed down, he slowly raising his gaze, staring coldly, in a way he had practiced in front of his bathroom mirror thousands of times, at the thug facing him. When he reached the waistline of the “fat bastard,” something inside Joseph suggested he be a tad cautious. When he reached the man’s breast, he expected to meet a face, so he could stare down a pair of eyes and then punch the living shit out of them, but the problem was there was no head there; so Joseph had to raise his neck even further—and that’s when he realize that he faced a giant of a man.

  His anger transformed to concern, all in an instant—or was it fear? Staring back at him through the pouring rain was a huge, scarred face with tiny dark eyes that displayed absolutely no intelligence whatsoever, framed by thick, messy, long dark-grayish hair and a long beard, all in desperate need of a good trimming. The giant’s forearms were twice as thick as Joseph’s legs, and they were hairier than a musk ox in heat. He had found the Abominable Snowman.

  This Yeti reeked of alcohol and that indefinable lumberjack smell. Joseph swallowed hard, his facial muscles spasming uncontrollably. He tried a faint smile, but the only result was that his feet left the ground as a big fist knotted in the collar of his muddy jacket, and there, finally, they were facing each other man to man. Joseph now had absolutely no desire to fight this missing link whatsoever. The giant had lifted him about a foot in the air with just one hand. The pull from the collar of his jacket prevented Joseph from uttering a word. With his other hand, the giant raised a coffee cup, taking a sip while giving Joseph a stare and chewing his tobacco.

  Suddenly, the Yeti pulled him closer. His breath reeked like a garbage can with a dead animal in it that hadn’t been emptied in a month or two. He grunted something, and then he mumbled, “Hey. Urban cowboy. Watch where yer goin’.”

  With that said, the yeti spat a stream of black juice in Joseph’s face, giving him a broken-toothed smile before he tossed Joseph over his shoulder like a rag, sipping on his coffee without spilling a drop. Joseph flew straight towards the entrance, where one bouncer was bent down while he struggled with the door, colliding headfirst with the two pretty young women and another bouncer, who was checking their IDs. The bouncer struggling with the door finally, with a happy shout, managed to shut the entrance with a loud bang.

  Little Noise had already forgotten about the minor obstacle that had hindered his path, and was now moving against the powerful wind towards his beloved pick-’em-up truck, an elderly Dodge. He got in the beat-up truck, still pissed that he had to go back up to the landing and check on the cable yarder. Had he shut off the engine or not?
This was the disturbing question tumbling around in his somewhat empty brain. Well, no matter; he had made up his mind to go back and check on it. Better do it before the boss man, Paul Harris, found out. Little Noise didn’t want to get fired again. So he placed his coffee cup next to his spit cup and turned on the ignition. The truck might be an old one, but it started up like a snarling cat. A blue-black cloud left the exhaust pipe as Noise hit the accelerator. He drove by some more youths, both boys and girls, all dressed up and scrambling for the doors to get away from the rain.

  Noise could have slowed down when he saw the large puddle next to them, but he did not; instead, he increased his speed and a wave of dirty water splashed the kids, covering them with mud. He guffawed as he checked his latest feat in the rearview mirror. Dumbass kids. He looked around for his chewing tobacco, and there it was: his good old Redman package. He already had a nice handful of chew in his mouth, but its strength had diminished, and half of it he had already swallowed or spat out. Steering with his knees, he offloaded a large chunk of new chewing tobacco and showed it into his mouth. Once he had given it a few chews, he packed it with the old tobacco inside his right cheek, making it pop out like an enormous pimple that was about to burst. He grabbed his spit cup with his right hand while he was steering his beloved truck with his left, and spat out a long, dark gob into it; then he grabbed his coffee cup, so he could finish his coffee. Nothing like the mix of fresh coffee and chew, he thought. He gulped down everything and swallowed it in a flash.

  Noise’s eyes became the size of dinner plates when he realized he’d grabbed the wrong cup and swallowed his own spit. Coughing and cursing, he slammed on the brakes. Opening the driver’s side door and leaning out, he vomited a black stream of repulsive crap onto the road.

  A sports car drove by, and a bunch of kids screamed, “Amateur night, you old bastard! Go home and take a shit!”

  A flood wave of water from another puddle hit Noise in his face, making it even uglier. He looked after the young assholes as dirty rainwater dribbled down his beard, and decided that whatever he had planned on doing could wait. ‘Sides, he’d already forgotten what it was. He slammed the door shut, made a three-point turn, and headed after the kids. An eye for an eye, the little fuckers.