“I talk loud.”
“It doesn’t matter how loud you talk, sweetheart. Her ears have been hurt and they don’t work.”
“Did she fall down?”
“No, honey. She was very sick.”
“Is she sick now?”
“No. But when she was, it broke something in her ears.”
“They broke?” The child tilted her head to look at Odette, then quickly scooted off the stool and around the table. “I kiss… make ’em better.” She threw her arms around Odette’s neck, pulled her head down and kissed her first on one ear and then the other.
When Odette got over her surprise, she smiled with pure pleasure and murmured. “Thank you.”
With her pixie face wreathed in smiles, Jeanmarie climbed back up on the stool and turned the full force of her gaze on her mother.
“Is him her uncle?”
“He’s her papa.” Dory sliced the hot bread, passed it to Ben and Odette and moved the butter dish to within their reach. “Help yourself to the butter and jelly.”
“I ain’t got a papa,” Jeanmarie said. “But I got Uncle James.”
Ben noticed that this announcement had no effect at all on the mother, who smoothed jelly on a slice of bread, cut it, and put it on her daughter’s plate.
“Don’t know when I’ve tasted better bread,” Ben said.
“Could be you’re just hungry,” Dory replied. “My mother was the best bread maker in the territory. She claimed the secret to making good bread was to dissolve the yeast in potato water. In the winter she’d load a dishpan full of warm bread and take it to the cutters up in the woods. Before they started the winter cut they would make sure a path was cleared for the sleigh. Sometimes, even then, Mama had to walk a mile through deep snow. She loved the woods and—”
Her voice trailed when she realized she had been chattering like a magpie. Weeks went by when the only adult conversation she had was with old Wiley in the bunkhouse and an occasional grunt from her brothers, who took turns coming back to the homestead on Sunday.
Ben liked sitting across the table from the woman, listening to her voice. He sensed her loneliness. He was strangely comfortable with her, although he could feel the sharp edge of her curiosity about him and Odette.
Silence, broken only by the child’s chatter, stretched while they finished off most of a loaf of bread. Then the thump of heavy boots came from the porch, followed immediately by the opening of the door.
The man who stood in the doorway looked down the table at Ben, then advanced a step into the room and slammed the door shut behind him. He was a big, deep-chested man wearing the clothing of a logger: pant legs stuffed into the tops of his boots, a mackinaw, and a wool cap. Snow lay on his shoulders and clung to his wiry beard. He took another step, his eyes, hard and piercing, holding on Ben.
“Who the hell are you and what’er you doin’ in my house?”
CHAPTER
* 2 *
The greeting was as shocking to Ben as a splash of cold water. A chill crawled over his skin, but he met the man’s angry gaze without a flicker of the emotion that tensed every nerve inside him. He pushed himself away from the table and stood.
“For God’s sake, Louis! He’s the man you sent for,” Dory said before Ben could speak.
“Benton Waller?”
“Yes,” Ben said. “I wrote that I’d be here between the tenth—”
“—And… the fifteenth.” Louis rudely interrupted. He threw angry, suspicious words at his sister. “What’s he doing in here?”
“I invited him in.” Dory stood, her face red with anger and embarrassment.
“Hired hands are not invited into my house,” Louis shouted.
“Your house?” Dory retorted, her voice low and quivery. “One fourth of this house is mine and I’ll invite in who I please. Nothing in Papa’s will gives you the right to say who comes in and who does not.”
“I’m head of this family. You’ll do as I say, or—”
“Or what, brother dear? James won’t let you throw me out. We’re two against two.”
“That don’t mean shit!”
“You’re back a day early,” Dory said lightly, then added with heavy sarcasm, “Did you hope to catch me having a high old time with old Wiley?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve had a high old time,” he sneered.
“You’re pitiful, Louis. Mean-minded and pitiful.”
“Thank you for the coffee and bread, ma’am.” Ben felt an acute dislike for Louis Callahan, and the need to leave before his fist connected with the man’s face. He reached the coat rack in two strides and unhooked Odette’s coat as well as his own.
Odette followed Ben and stood close beside him. She could tell by his movements and his facial expression that he was angry. Something had gone wrong. Something Ben would tell her about later.
Louis seemed to notice Odette for the first time. “Who’s this?”
“His daughter, you stupid, bull-headed dolt. You didn’t tell the man he would have to share quarters with twenty or more horny timber beasts.”
“Stay out of this,” he snarled. “This is company business.”
“I’ve got a one-fourth say.”
“You got nothin’ to say. He should’ve told me he was bringin’ womenfolk.”
“Blaming him! That’s typical of you, Louis,” Dory said scathingly.
“We’ll be moving on.” Ben’s terse voice broke in. “If it wouldn’t be asking too much, I’d be obliged if we could stay in the barn until the storm blows itself out.”
Dory came around the table. “I apologize for my brother’s rudeness. Let Odette stay with me and Jeanmarie until you’re settled in another job.”
“Don’t worry about Odette, ma’am. I have the offer of another job down on the Saint Joe, less than a day’s ride from here.”
“Malone!” Louis shouted, making Ben wonder if the man ever spoke in a normal tone. “Is that goddamned Malone after you?”
Ben ignored the question and helped Odette into her coat.
Louis Callahan took off his mackinaw. “Waller, I was a bit hasty,” he admitted grudgingly.
“Only a bit?” Dory’s green eyes were large with mock concern.
“A man can’t be too careful about his womenfolk in this country,” he said with a meaningful look at his sister. “We’ll fix up quarters for you and the girl.”
“We’ll be moving on.” Ben steered Odette to the door. “About the barn?” He left the question hanging.
“Wait. It’s best we talk this over,” Louis said, pulling the cap from his head, which was bald except for a fringe of thick graying hair around the edges. “I ain’t a man to go back on my word. I said you’d have private quarters and they’ll be decent.”
“I’ve never worked for a man who considered me unfit to step foot inside his home.”
“You’d understand if you knew the circumstances here.”
“Your family affairs are none of my business. I came here to do a job and move on.”
“There’s no womenfolk at Malone’s,” Louis said quickly.
“There are,” Dory declared stridently. “You’re lying and you know it.”
Both men ignored her.
“We’ve been where there were no women before.” Ben was settling his hat on his head.
“Stay. Dory would be company for your girl. And I’ll pay half again more than you asked.”
Dory suddenly let out a peal of contemptuous laughter.
“Hush up,” Louis snapped.
“Why would you pay more than I asked for in the first place?” Ben asked.
“Because I need that engine working and a flume built,” Louis said, glaring at Dory as she continued to laugh.
“I’ll tell you why he’s suddenly desperate to keep you.” Dory’s eyes sparkled with laughter. She didn’t appear to be at all cowed by her huge older brother. “You said the magic words—you said you’d work for Malone over on the Saint Joe.”
She burst out in laughter again. “That was enough to make Louis roll over and play dead.”
“We need to talk in private,” Louis growled.
Ben looked down at Odette’s tired, pinched face. He couldn’t let his pride stand in the way of what was best for her. If the man was willing to pay half again the money he had offered, and with what he had already put away, it would be enough to set up a carpentry business for himself. Settlers were moving in by the droves, and there was bound to be a great demand for furniture, doors, window frames and flooring. He liked the mechanical work with the donkey machine, but he liked woodworking better.
Hell, he didn’t have to like the man to work for him.
While Ben was mulling these thoughts over in his mind, he glanced at the child sitting at the table. Jeanmarie was perfectly still. Only her eyes, blue as the sky, betrayed anxiety. They shifted from her mother to her uncle as she waited patiently for the scene to end. Memories of himself cowering in the corner while his aunt and uncle battled verbally and physically flashed into his mind, and he felt once again the confusion this child was feeling.
“Well, Waller. Are you willing to talk it over?”
Ben looked once again into Odette’s anxious face. Out of the blue the responsibility of caring for her had been thrust upon him. What had followed had been three difficult years of adjustment for both of them. Now he realized just how empty his life would be without her.
“I’ll talk.” Ben hung his hat back on the peg and shrugged out of his coat. “Stay with the lady,” he said to Odette and was relieved when she nodded.
Without another word to his sister, or a greeting to his niece, Louis led the way from the kitchen into a hallway. Away from the fire, it was cold. Along the hall on one side was the stairway and beneath it a door that opened into a small room. Inside, Louis lit a lamp and flung open the door of a round Acme Oak heater. The firebox was full of tinder that caught when he struck a match on the ornamental rim of the stove and tossed it inside. With a grunt of satisfaction, he slammed the door shut and reached into a cabinet for a bottle of whiskey.
Ben stood inside the door of the sparsely furnished room. A rolltop desk, its contents neatly arranged, occupied one wall, a leather-covered lounge the other. The only other furniture was the glass-front cabinet that held several bottles of spirits. There were no pictures on the walls and no rug on the floor.
He accepted the half-glass of whiskey when Louis handed it to him.
“That’ll warm your insides while we wait for the fire to take the chill off.” Louis pulled the chair away from the desk, sat down, and motioned toward the lounge. “Sit. Not much here in the way of records,” he said, indicating the desk. “We do business at the mill.”
Thirty-four years of hard life had left Ben Waller little room for trust. He was especially leery of a man who flew off the handle and made quick, unfounded accusations. He waited for Louis to speak. Waiting was something Ben knew how to do. His thoughts reverted to what had led up to this abrupt change of mind on the part of his potential employer. Louis Callahan had been giving him the boot until he had mentioned working over on the Saint Joe.
Before coming here, Ben had studied the area carefully. Malone’s was the only mill of any real size on the Saint Joe. Callahan’s and Malone’s used the same waterway to the river that flowed into the Coeur d’Alene Lake, where “boom men” would sort out logs stamped on their ends with the marks of the upstream loggers.
“I’m not a hard man, Waller,” Louis said, interrupting Ben’s thoughts. “It’s not been easy lookin’ after a woman like Dory in a place where men outnumber women ten to one.” He waited for Ben to comment and when he didn’t, he went on. “Dory’s got wild blood. So has James. He ain’t got sense enough to pour piss out of a boot. Their ma was a hot-blooded little piece if there ever was one. She was after my pa before he had time to get my ma in the ground. She got him so heated up he married up with her and from then on she was queen of the roost. She paraded around with her hair hanging down her back, a-smilin’ and touchin’ Pa all the time. The old fool was bedazzled. Whatever Jean wanted, Jean got.”
“I thought we were going to talk about the job.”
“We are. I’m tryin’ to tell you why I acted the way I did.” Louis set his glass on the desk, leaned back in the chair, and hooked his thumbs in the wide galluses he wore over his broad shoulders to support his britches. Ben noticed that the wool shirt Louis wore was neatly mended and wondered if the work had been done by the sister with the wild blood.
“Your family history has nothing to do with the job I’ll be doing here.”
“I think it does,” Louis said belligerently. “Dory’s already got one bastard, mister. I mean to see she don’t get any more.”
“You’re talking pretty blunt to a stranger, Callahan.” There was a hard ring in Ben’s voice.
“Maybe. It ain’t somethin’ we’re proud of.”
“As I said before, your family problems have nothing to do with me.”
“But now you know why I was rankled when I found you here.”
“No, I don’t know. Did you think I was going to plow your sister in front of my daughter and hers?” Ben stood. His tone was as cold as a frozen pond. “I don’t see a way for us to come to terms, Callahan.”
“Sit down, sit down. I’m a straight-talkin’ man and didn’t mean to rile you.”
“I don’t hold with a man running down a woman, especially his sister.”
“Half-sister. Pa had two batches of kids. Me and Milo, then James and Dory. Hell, man! Dory ain’t got no reputation to run down. Ever’body knows what she is. Ain’t a decent woman in the territory that’ll give her the time of day. She’s got a youngun and ain’t wed. You’d a heard about it sooner or later. Might as well come from me.”
Ben finished his drink and put the empty glass on the desk.
“Talk business or I’m leaving.”
“I’ve put a lot of money out to get Dolbeer’s engine. I heard of it back in ’82. It took me three years to get a hold of one.” Louis rubbed his hands on his broad thighs. “We’ve got plenty of big stuff cut and ready for the steam donkey to reel in. I’m building a V-shaped flume. Ever seen one?” He went on before Ben could answer. “It’s a dandy. Won’t take as much grease as a flat-bottom and has less chance of jamming. By God, before the end of the next year my flume will be 2,000 feet long. We’ll reel the logs to the flume and let it take them to the river.”
Ben’s mind was on the woman in the kitchen. Her green eyes had looked straight into his. Not boldly, but with assurance and self-possession. Nothing in her manner conformed with the picture her brother had painted of her. She was all woman and Ben could understand why men would swarm around her like flies. He’d had more experience with the type of woman Callahan painted his sister to be than with any other kind, and she just didn’t seem to fit the mold of a loose woman; but appearances were deceiving. He knew a banker’s wife in Spokane who was as hot as a firecracker and had spread her legs for half the men in town, yet she sang in the choir every Sunday. Another more important question puzzled Ben. Why was Callahan so eager to have him believe that his sister was a strumpet?
“We’re not milling near as much as we’re sending down river. My brother Milo is mill boss. We float some of the plank and haul some. Our sawmill has the capacity of only about three thousand board feet of lumber a day.”
Ben knew about sawmills. From the age of ten, he had been a hand in his uncle’s sawmill, or in the woods with an ax, or on one end of a crosscut saw. By the time he was sixteen, he had become an expert cutter, peeler, bucker and high-rigger. At seventeen he was “bull of the woods,” a camp foreman. By the next year he was recognized as the best “river pig” on the Wishkah River. He knew everything about the logging business, but the part that made Ben sick was indiscriminate rape of the forest by greedy loggers who left the hillsides exposed to the ravages of snow and rain.
Louis Callahan continued to talk.
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“When we get the steam donkey set up, we’ll float more logs than Malone ever thought of. By God, he’ll have to sit up and take notice.” Excited by his own prediction, he hastily crammed tobacco into a pipe, spilling some of it on the floor between his spread thighs.
“Before I decide to take you up on your offer of what you contracted to pay me, plus half that amount again”—Ben intended to make it perfectly clear that he expected the extra wages—“I need to know about what type of lodging you’ll provide.”
“Well, now, I been thinkin’ on that.”
Louis studied the big dark-haired man with the steel-colored remote eyes, the careful eyes of a man who knew what he wanted and walked strongly down a way he chose. If he lost Ben Waller to the Malones, it would take months to find another man to set up the steam donkey and show them how to operate it. On the other hand, he was sure that Milo wouldn’t like this man; he was too independent, too sure of himself. Well, his brother was going to have to pull in his horns this time. At least until they were through with Waller.
“What I had in mind”—Louis cleared his throat—“is for your girl to stay here with Dory. She’ll look after her and welcome her company.”
“You’re suggesting that I allow my daughter to stay with a woman of ill repute?” Ben asked with a heavy frown.
A deep red covered Louis’s face. “Well, now, I didn’t say that Dory was… that kind.”
“You certainly did. You said she had wild blood and implied that she was loose.”
“She ain’t goin’ to lead your girl off, I know that.”
“Considering the kind of woman you say she is, I’m not sure I want to take the chance.”
“She’s got wild blood, but I was hasty when I said she was loose… now.” Louis rubbed his sweating palms on his thighs.
“You lied?”
“Ah… no.” Louis stammered. “She’s got a bastard. That I can’t deny, but—”
“—But she ah… uses the homestead for a brothel while her brothers are away?”
“Hell no!” Louis almost rose up out of the chair. “I never said no such.”
Sins of Summer Page 2