by Paty Jager
Her family stayed with Myrle at her boarding house/restaurant, allowing Rachel more time to work on the house and prepare for the wedding. Celeste and her fiancé had helped decorate for the wedding. Rachel smiled at Celeste, clinging to Oregon Representative Jeremiah Folsum’s arm. She and Clay would soon be attending her sister’s wedding in Salem.
Clay reached out to her when she passed the last row of benches. She slipped her hand in his and smiled. This man’s strength and love would get her through anything. He pulled her close and ran his hand over her face, across her shoulder, and over a puffy sleeve of her dress.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered before they faced the preacher.
Clay held onto Rachel’s hand drawing in her love and reveling in the concept she would be his forever after today.
He didn’t have to see Rachel to know she glowed. Her breathy vows, fingers clinging to his, and loving presence proved it.
“You may now kiss your bride.”
The preacher’s announcement couldn’t have come too soon for Clay. He held Rachel’s head in his hands. “I will always be here for you.”
She nodded slightly.
He lowered his head and tenderly kissed her lips.
The veil didn’t tickle. His hands traveled up her head. It was bare.
“Where’s your bonnet?” he whispered against her lips.
“I’m not hiding anymore.”
The proclamation rang loud and clear. She’d no longer allow anyone to make her feel inferior, and she wouldn’t cling to her career.
He wanted to drag her against him, kiss her passionately, and then carry her up to their room and show her the power of her strength and convictions.
Clapping and hoots invaded what he would have liked to keep intimate.
Rachel drew out of the kiss, molded to his side, and wrapped an arm around his waist.
He hugged her shoulders and smiled at their guests. A room full, he’d been told.
Hank’s voice quieted the murmur. “Before we start eating and visiting, I have a telegram from Ethan he’d like me to read.”
A paper rustled, and Hank cleared his throat “‘Clay and Rachel, Aileen, Colin, Shayla, and I are sorry to miss this special occasion. We’re happy you found each other and may your love bind your hearts.’”
“That’s beautiful,” Rachel said and sniffed. “I can’t wait to meet them.”
Clay captured her tear on his fingertip. “No tears today unless they’re full of happiness.”
“That’s all they will ever be with you in my life.”
“I love you, and I never want to be without you,” Clay said.
Rachel lunged into his arms and kissed him boldly in front of their full parlor. “I thought you’d never say those words. I love you, too.”
Logger in Petticoats
Halsey Brother Series
Paty Jager
Windtree Press
Beaverton, OR
1
Dedication
To my critique partners, Lori, Lauri, and Eve. And my editorial staff Angie, Christy, and Nicole.
Logger in Petticoats
Chapter 1
Sumpter, Oregon
1891
Hank Halsey’s stomach churned with apprehension even as his heart raced with anticipation. He studied each person seated around the huge table in Clay and Rachel’s dining room. For the first time since their youth, all five Halsey brothers were seated at a Christmas Eve dinner.
Gil, Darcy, and their two, Sadie and Harry, along with Darcy’s brother, Jeremy, had ridden in from Galena. Maeve and Zeke now lived in Sumpter awaiting the arrival of their baby. Maeve didn’t trust anyone other than her sister-in-law, Dr. Rachel Halsey to deliver her child. Rachel sat at the end of the table feeding her baby daughter, Frankie, mashed potatoes as Clay rested a hand on his daughter’s leg. At the end of the table sat Ethan and Aileen and their two, Colin and Shayla.
Hank cleared his throat and stood.
Conversations stopped.
Everyone, including the children, turned their attention to him. A knot formed in his throat, squeezing off his air. He’d kept the stamp mill running when Ethan and Aileen returned to Ireland to reclaim Colin’s inheritance, and he took up the slack when Clay tended Rachel and their new baby. He was always the dependable one. The brother they could count on to handle things at the stamp mill at a minute’s notice. Now it was his turn to go out on his own and leave the mining and stamp mill in his brothers’ hands.
“Well, what’s been on your mind?” Ethan asked in his big brother tone that reminded Hank of their father.
“It’s been that obvious?” Hank countered still finding the fortitude to have his say. He loved his brothers and their families and while he had to get out on his own, taking on this new venture felt like betrayal.
“You’ve been cranky as a bear, Uncle Hank,” Shayla said, her huge green eyes staring at him.
He glanced once more around the table. Picked up his glass of water and took a long drink. Hank nodded and firmly set the cup down. Now was the time.
“I’m starting a logging operation. The railroad will soon be hauling lumber to areas with no trees. If we stockpile until the line is finished, we’ll make as much or more money from the trees on our land as the minerals we’re digging.” Hank studied the faces of everyone around the table. No one had a scowl, so he continued. “I’ve been corresponding with a family run operation, and they’ve agreed to come at the first of the year and start setting up a log camp. As soon as the camp’s ready, we’ll hire woodsmen and start logging.” There, he said it.
“It’s about time!” Clay slapped his hands on the table, rattling the dishes and causing Frankie to pucker her face and squall.
“Can I work with you?” Colin asked above the din of Frankie’s cries and Rachel shushing her.
“We’ll see. I’m not sure the logging company I’ve contacted will want a greenhorn young man working with them.” Hank didn’t want anything to happen to Aileen’s son or any family member. Until he learned all about logging and could proficiently carry out all the jobs, he didn’t want any family members involved.
The women all smiled and his brothers all nodded. This wasn’t what he’d expected. Since the stamp mill began as a dream in Ethan’s head, Hank had been the brother who could be relied upon to do what was asked.
“You’ve been eyeballing those pine trees since you spent time helping old man Crawford at the sawmill in Baker City.” Ethan put an arm around the back of Aileen’s chair. “I can’t believe it’s taken you this long to finally do something.”
“Finally? I’ve been taking up the slack all of you make when you marry and have children.” He’d never carried a grudge toward his brothers or anyone else, but over the last year he’d started harboring a need to be on his own. Living and working in a log camp was the first step in that direction.
“Where’re you going to set up the camp?” Gil asked.
“I’m not sure. I have a couple spots picked out, but Mr. Nielson, the boss of the outfit, will make the final decision. I picked him for his logging knowledge and his family. The boys each oversee different stages of the logging and the wife and daughter run the cookhouse.” He still wasn’t sure having women in a logging camp was a good idea.
“Why are you frowning?” Zeke was always too observant.
“I like everything about the logging operation except the two women.” Hank could have turned to dust at that moment from the scathing looks his sisters-in-law shot him.
“Why shouldn’t there be women? You said they’re part of the family operation.” Darcy, the feistiest of the women, pointed her small nose at him like a dog about to attack.
“I-Women can be disruptive.” He held up both hands as all four raised out of their chairs.
“We’ll show you disruptive.” Maeve snatched back the pies she and Aileen had just deposited on the table.
“Aye, no pie for men—” Aileen started.
“Whoa!” Ethan clapped his hands getting their attention. “The rest of us are more than happy to have women around.”
“Yeah!” chorused his whipped brothers.
Hank folded his arms across his chest. “I want you all eating crow when one of the Nielsen women disrupts the operation.”
“Fine, but they’ll be nae pie for a man who distrusts women before he even meets them.” Aileen set the pie back on the table and sunk a knife into the golden crust.
Hank’s mouth watered, but he knew better than to go against everyone in the room.
“So you’ve met the family?” Gil asked.
“Only the father. He’s Norwegian and believes in hard work and family time.” Hank had never met a more jovial man in his thirty-one years. If the rest of the family had his attitude working with them wouldn’t feel like work.
“So, the daughter…How old is she?” Darcy asked, passing the pie plates around the table as Aileen filled them.
He knew that tone. His sister-in-law had it in her mind to try and make a match. She’d thrust several women, and in some cases girls, into his life since her marriage to Gil.
“I have no idea other than she’s the youngest, and Arvid cares a great deal for his daughter.” The man had expounded on her strength, her wit, and her willingness to help her mother to the point Hank had almost felt like the man had matchmaking in his mind as well.
Not that Hank wasn’t interested in marriage. He’d witnessed firsthand how his brothers were content and enjoying all the pleasures of being married. But he wanted to prove his worth, bring a new venture to his family, and have his own stake in the outcome.
~*~
Hank stood at the base of the mountain the Halsey brother’s owned. The thick pine and fir trees colored the mountainside dark green as the cold January sun bathed the snow-covered eastern slope.
“Ja, this is the best place for the camp,” Arvid said, stepping off areas and pounding metal stakes through the snow into the frozen earth. “This will be the cookhouse and my quarters.” He planted a fourth stake. “My boys will sleep with us until the other buildings are finished.” Arvid stood several inches taller than Hank’s six-foot-three, and his shoulders spanned a hand’s width wider than Hank’s.
Hank had yet to introduce Arvid to his brothers, but he didn’t have any doubts they would be as impressed with the logger as he was.
“How many buildings are needed? Won’t that use a lot of the timber?” Hank knew this mountain and the one next to it, all land owned by the Halsey’s and Aileen, held more lumber than they could remove in a year, but he felt a need to keep an eye on the amount used for accommodations.
The man’s green eyes glittered with amusement, and a smile stretched across his wide face. “Son, without even hiking up your mountains, I can guarantee you will not run out of lumber for several years. The buildings are necessary to keep your help happy. Happy workers make good workers, ja?”
“Yes.” He couldn’t argue with the man’s line of thinking. “I’ve never been to a logging operation. You’ll have to teach me everything I need to know, starting with the buildings and their uses.” Hank watched as the man stepped off another square area, tapping stakes at the corners.
“My oldest, Karl and his brother Dag will have a cabin. Tobias, he’s the youngest boy and the one who is good with numbers. He will have a room in the back of the office.” The man winked. “This is the building where you count your logs and your money, the beasts of the wood get their mail, and buy necessities.”
“What are necessities?” Hank spun the notion of what a logger might need.
“Socks, mittens, clothing, tobacco, whiskey, and paper.”
“Whiskey? I’m not sure I want a bunch of drunk men wielding axes and saws.” If most of the men were Arvid’s size, Hank didn’t like the idea of playing bouncer every night if a handful of men got liquored up.
“There’s usually only one or two that has a sickness for the bottle. And that’s the job of the bull cook to keep them under control.” Arvid moved over and stepped off another square. “Paddy will need a cabin.”
“Paddy?” Hank pushed up the woolen cap covering his ears enough to scratch his hairline.
“The bull cook.”
“I thought your wife and daughter did the cooking?” Hank had never felt so lost in a conversation as he did with this man.
“Ja, Ingrid and Kelda cook.”
“Then what does the bull cook, Paddy, do?”
“He lights the stoves and lamps, gets the men up and ready to work, calls them to meals, and takes care of the equipment and supplies. He then banks the stoves and turns out the lights at night. And that’s when he tends to the men that have had a bit too much of the whiskey.”
“He’s basically the man in charge of the loggers?” He must be as big as Arvid and strong as a bull to have the name “Bull Cook”.
“Only when they’re in the camp. Outside the camp it’s me and my boys, and some instances Kelda, who are in charge.”
Hank ripped his attention from the man’s large booted feet stepping out yet another square and peered at Arvid’s face. “Your wife is in charge of the loggers outside camp? I thought she cooked?”
“Nei! Kelda, my daughter. She’s been learning the trade since she was big enough to follow me and her brothers about the forest.” He winked. “And the men respect her. She can shank a chain and swing an axe as good as they. Of course there’s always the newcomer who has to give her a challenge, but she’s gives them a good turn.”
“Your daughter works in the woods? Isn’t that dangerous?” Hank shook his head. It wasn’t right for a woman to be in that kind of danger. “While you’re working for me I don’t want her in the woods.”
Arvid narrowed his eyes. “She is one of the best. She can handle any logging job.”
Hank stood his ground on this. “She’ll not work in the woods while you’re here. Keep her in the kitchen.” His brother’s wives had held occupations usually held by men. But a logger? What did the woman look like? Hank shivered at the thought.
“She will not be happy to hear you forbid her to work in the woods.”
“If she values her family having work here, she’ll abide.” Hank wasn’t going to back down.
Arvid watched him intently. “When we met I told you my family worked together, and I had a daughter.”
“Yes, I like that about your outfit, that it’s family. But I can’t have a woman out in the woods distracting the men or possibly getting hurt.”
Arvid shook his head, before his eyes lit with merriment again. “She can cook a berry pie better than any you’ve ever tasted. The men beg her for pies when the berries are ripe.”
Hank found it hard to fathom a woman who swung an axe like a man, baking pies. It just didn’t settle in his mind.
~*~
A week later fifteen wagons rolled into the meadow where Arvid had staked out the buildings. Big burly men and average sized men jumped out of the first two. The rest of the wagons were loaded down with gear and a few household goods along with one cookstove the likes Hank had never seen. It could take up a quarter of the cabin he and his brothers had lived in for years and now only he resided in.
Arvid strode toward him, his hand extended. “I have brought my family and the best woodsmen I know.”
Before Hank could say a word, yelling and the crash of trees resounded through the usually still air.
“Karl has the plans for the camp. He will direct where the buildings are to go. Dag is in charge of the tent where Ingrid and Kelda will cook until the cookhouse is finished.” Arvid strode to the back of a wagon, grabbed the head of a huge double-bladed axe like it was a walking cane and strode toward the group of men falling trees.
Hank peered at the chaos around him and soon realized everyone had a job, and they were all setting about doing it. All but him. He hadn’t a clue where he should help. His hands itched to do some labor, but from his vantage point it appeare
d he’d only get in the way.
A man approached him with gnarled hands, a limp, and hair so white it reflected the sun as glaringly as the snow under their feet. The top of his woolen cap, resting on the highest point of his head, came to Hank’s shoulder when he stopped and extended a hand.
Hank shook. “Hank Halsey.”
“I figured. Yer the only one not doin’ a thing. That’s generally how it is. The man with the money stands around looking special.”
“Now see here, Mr—”
“O’Brien. Paddy O’Brien. The bull cook.”
Hank stared at the man. This old coot was to keep drunken men the size of barns in line? “The way Arvid described you, I was expecting—”
“Someone young and as huge as a Ponderosa Pine?” The old man shook his head. “All you young’uns think it takes brawn to make people do what you want.” Paddy poked a curved finger at his temple. “It takes livin’ life and knowin’ the right words to get people to do what ye want. Besides, I’ve been loggin’ longer than you’ve been out o’knickers, and I know every catastrophe that can happen and every move a logger needs to make to be successful.” Paddy turned to leave but spun back. “Remember that when you find yourself in a pickle.”
“Wait. I don’t like to stand back and watch. I want to learn everything about this camp and logging. What can I do to help?” Hank wasn’t sure he liked the man, but he respected his knowledge. Myrle, the widow who helped his family after their parents’ were killed, had instilled the fact in all the brothers that older people were a wealth of information.
“You know how to build a cabin?” Paddy asked, his runny-eyed gaze running up and down Hank.
“I’ve helped build a couple.”
“Then go see Karl. He’s the tall dark-haired lad with the papers in his hand.” Paddy limped away moving with good speed toward the group erecting a large canvas tent.
Before Hank swung his gaze from the tent area, a blonde braid falling down the back of a man’s black wool coat and stopping at the spread of a woman’s hips in men’s dungarees caught his attention. Arvid’s wife or his daughter? Hank had to admit he was curious about a woman who worked alongside loggers.