Beneath the Slashings (Divided Decade Collection)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  Grace had seen some of the men through her tiny window. They were coarse and unshaven, dirty and travel-stained.

  “A full house,” Ivan told her, “means no more hiding. Today you vill help serve.”

  Grace took a step backward, her eyes large. She had managed to avoid interaction with the men so far. “But the cooking and washing, can’t I do those?”

  “Of course!” he agreed gruffly. “And serving too. Many hands it takes to feed men quickly.”

  Grace remained frozen.

  Ivan waved away her fear. “The men, they vill bite their food, not you.” He smiled at his own joke, the first smile she had seen him wear. It twisted his mustache upward at the ends.

  Without replying, Grace laid out the tin plates and the heavy iron knives and forks on the tables. She poured molasses from a barrel into three pitchers and set last night’s leftovers where the men could reach them. Last, she placed several pots of tea among the place settings but waited to pour, for the chill in the room would cool them quickly.

  Sam approached then. “You’re biting your lip.”

  He popped a cookie into her mouth. It tasted like dust. “I can’t help it.”

  He gave her a reassuring smile. “It’ll be fine, Grace. You’ll see. We’ll stick together. I’ll be right here with you the whole time.”

  She realized then what an effort Sam had been making to ease her transition. She gave her twin a small smile. Unfortunately, things didn’t pan out quite like he planned.

  Heavy footsteps pounded outside the mess hall, and a deep baritone rendition of “Frère Jacques” drifted in through the dingle. The folk song ended, replaced with a cheery, “Bonjour, Ivan! Zee morning, she is fine, no?” A hairy, grinning face peered through the kitchen door. “But your cookee, he forgets to fetch us water. Half zee men washed with, what you say, yesterday’s slop? Zee others, zey are demanding fresh.”

  Ivan glanced over at Sam, who had turned a bright shade of red. “Sorry, Ivan. I just forgot.”

  “Go,” the cook grunted, “after you sound mess.”

  The Frenchman grinned. “Merci, Samuel. Des beaux hommes. Zee men, zey must look, what you say, beautiful for mess, eh?” He laughed and exited the room, booming out his song once more.

  Sam rushed to obey, and immediately they heard the tinny sound of the Gabriel, the long tin horn Sam blew through to signify that each meal was ready.

  Ivan nodded to the platters of flapjacks and fried pork. “Take out to men.”

  Grace’s palms began to sweat, but she gulped and nodded.

  The teamsters arrived first. Sam had to waken them earliest so they could tend their animals. Grace barely had time to set out the first platters before they sat down. She recognized a few of them. Fiddlesticks, whom she had not spoken to since their introduction, gave her a wink and fell to his grub. The others only eyed her curiously before wolfing down their food in huge bites.

  The most strenuous positions in camp were filled by men in their twenties and thirties, strong young men who could handle the hard, physical labor. But less-demanding jobs were filled by fellows of every description, from skinny teenagers to gray-haired old men. Fiddlesticks looked to be the oldest among this bunch, but one of the teamsters, a dark-eyed boy who downed at least ten flapjacks, appeared to be only a few years older than Grace.

  Sam returned then and helped pour tea and refill platters. As the teamsters finished, the children whisked the dirty dishes to the kitchen and rushed to set out new for the second wave of men pouring in the door.

  “It’s a girl!” exclaimed a dirty-haired newcomer. “Heard there was one in camp, but I didn’t believe it.”

  “It’s the boss’s kid,” explained his companion.

  The first man glowered. “It’s bad luck having a female in camp.”

  Fiddlesticks clapped a hand on the woodsman’s shoulder in passing. “There ain’t nothin’ to that old story, Charlie,” he assured him with a yellow-toothed grin. “I been in camp with womenfolk before. They serve better grub and give a man somethin’ more agreeable to look at than your ugly mug.”

  There was laughter all around, and the barn boss’s high-pitched cackle faded as he swaggered out the door. Grace’s face flushed a deep scarlet.

  The young teamster tried to set Grace at ease. “Don’t let them bother you,” he said. “They’re just joshing. They know your Pa would skin any man who gave you a hard time and tack his hide to the wall.” He drained the last of his tea and stood to make room for the newcomers.

  Grace set down a plate of fried potatoes with a clatter and fled to the kitchen to recompose herself, nearly running down Ivan as he came out the door with a load of food. Sam zoomed in and out twice while she stood with shaking knees and thumping heart, listening to the sound of boots fill the large room.

  Ivan returned and flipped a mountain of fried eggs off the griddle. He handed them to her, along with another pot of tea. “Go!” he ordered, waving her back into the mess hall. “No time to be shy.”

  The second group had already settled down to serious eating, and not another word was spoken. They looked ridiculous in their working gear: brightly patterned shirts and red woolen socks pulled up over their trousers to the knee. Even in the dim light of the lanterns, it appeared that a careless artist had spilled his pallet across the room.

  She had just emptied a pot of tea when a door to the dingle banged open and Pa appeared, dragging a sullen-looking lumberjack inside by the front of his shirt. The man’s matted hair flopped with each stumbling step.

  “I told you, boss, I won’t stand for being paired with no darky.”

  “You are in no position to make demands, Silas,” Pa answered, his voice harsh and grating. Then Pa turned to meet the eyes of the watching men. “When you hired on, I told each of you that I will not tolerate whiskey, playing cards, gambling, or the trouble they bring to camp. In town, you’re free to squander your time and money any way you see fit, but here they’re grounds for dismissal.

  “Silas,” he addressed the man he held, “word is you’re one of the finest axe men in the woods, but last night you were drunker than a one-legged soldier. If I catch you with even one more drop of red eye, you will collect your pay and you will walk.” Pa shook him roughly. “As to your partner, Jefferson Jones has already proven to me that he is equally skilled.”

  “Ain’t natural, making a darky a chopper,” Silas grumbled sullenly.

  Grace scanned the room and spotted one black man. He was tall and well-muscled. She knew choppers drew equal pay as the others, but the position was considered the very best. Jefferson certainly looked strong enough to fill it.

  “That is my decision to make, not yours,” Pa answered. “Besides, he’s left-handed, and I’m told your left swing has been weakened by a bullet you took at Shiloh.”

  The man’s face darkened. “I can swing an axe standing on either side of the tree!” he stormed. “I don’t need to be coddled by no wrong-handed buck!”

  Grace saw the black man tense and half-rise from his seat, but his neighbor reached out an arm and drew him back.

  Pa leveled a hard stare at the offender. “Remind me, Silas, what side of the war did you fight on?”

  Tense seconds ticked by, and Pa shoved the man roughly against the wall. Grace cringed as his head struck a log. She had never seen her father so violent.

  “Go eat your breakfast,” Pa growled, “and don’t let me catch you causing any more trouble.”

  Silas sat down at one of the tables and the incident was quickly forgotten. The men ate with a restless energy, fresh and eager to begin a new season. Before five minutes had passed, they were sliding shirtsleeves across greasy mouths and belching contentedly.

  Pa’s voice cut through the chinks in the wall, “It’s daylight in the swamp, boys!”

  The silence that marked the meal ended abruptly. Benches were pushed back, and the men left to fetch their tools with noisy excitement. Grace marked their progress into the woods by
the rumble of their singing.

  When the last man had gone, Grace helped Sam carry an hour’s worth of dirty dishes into the kitchen where Ivan already had vats of hot water boiling on the stove. After the task was completed Sam left to chop and stack firewood, and Grace stirred up ingredients for twelve dozen cookies. While the work and the stove kept her body warm, her damp feet never did thaw in the drafts that swept the hard-packed floor.

  Sam entered, sweaty and disheveled, and dumped an armload of wood into the box near the stove. Ivan grunted his approval then nodded his head toward the mess hall. “Sam, Grace, fetch dinner from the camboose.”

  Grace looked at Sam, puzzled at this new mystery, but her brother grabbed her arm. “The bean hole,” he explained. “Come on!”

  Like a dog following some new scent, he dragged her out through the dingle. A draft blew in the space between the buildings. After the pleasant kitchen, the outside air felt icy.

  “In here!” Sam pulled open the bunkhouse door, and the smells that gushed out cramped Grace’s stomach with nausea. She identified smoke, sweat, wet wool, and unwashed clothing mixed with the stale breath of forty people. Beyond that, she didn’t even dare to guess the odors.

  The room was lit by the orange glow of a huge fire pit in the center of the dirt floor and by the open smoke hole cut into the roof above it. A continuous line of bunks traced the walls, stacked double and wide enough for two, with a hard wooden bench built around their base. Clotheslines dripping with socks and long johns laced the interior, and everywhere lay evidence of the occupants: a tin cup, a broken bootlace, bedrolls flung open across the bunks, stray socks, a book, a package of tobacco...

  “I wish I could sleep in here with the men instead of in the kitchen,” Sam admitted wistfully.

  Grace pinched her nose. “The aroma would be too much for me.”

  “You should smell it when I wake the men up in the morning. And the noises—” he broke off with a snort of laughter, but catching her disapproving look, he quickly amended, “are probably more than you want to hear about.”

  She gave him a severe frown, exactly like Aunt Sally would have. “What is this ‘camboose’ Ivan wants us to find?”

  “It’s the fireplace. The beans cooked there all night. Ivan told me they’d be ready to bring to the men at noon.”

  She looked up sharply. “We have to deliver them?”

  “I have to,” he beamed. “Once lumbering starts, the men don’t come back till after dark. Only Ivan, the barn boss, and the blacksmith stick around. So one of my jobs is to pack a cart and haul their lunch out to them.”

  Grace brightened a little. “They won’t be home all day?”

  “What difference does it make?” Sam frowned. “You never leave the kitchen.”

  “I like the kitchen,” she said defensively. “It’s warm and safe. And Ivan isn’t so bad once you get to know him.”

  “Grace,” her brother began with careful patience, “you’ll go insane if you stay inside those four walls all the time.”

  “I have my books.”

  The door opened behind them. “What are you kids doing in here?”

  They whirled to see Mr. Bigg peering at them suspiciously. “Ivan sent us to rob the bean hole,” Sam volunteered.

  “Beans,” the man sniffed. “You’d think that old Russian could do better than beans with the fancy new stove Davison fetched into camp for him.”

  Grace’s brow furrowed. Beans aside, she thought Ivan a pretty fair cook. Not like Aunt Sally, but the food was better than she expected based on Pa’s old stories.

  Sam’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing in here, Mr. Bigg? Aren’t you supposed to be out in the woods with the men?”

  The scaler straightened indignantly, his goatee bristling. He reminded Grace of a puffed-up cat. “I need not explain myself to a child. But for your information, I’ve been sent here like a chore boy to retrieve Shorty Phillips’s spare ax.”

  He strode across the room and grasped a tool by the helve.

  “That’s not Shorty’s bunk,” Sam told him.

  Mr. Bigg spun around and glared at the boy. His shoulder twitched impatiently. “Well, which one is it then?”

  Sam pointed. “That one.”

  The scaler snatched it and brushed past them with a smoldering look.

  “Old stuffed shirt,” Sam muttered. “Here, Grace, give me a hand with these beans.”

  “I don’t see any beans.” There was nothing in the camboose but burned logs and gray ash.

  “They’re here.” He dug in the fire with a spade and in moments had unearthed a pot with a heavy iron lid. He wrapped a rag around the sooty handle and together they carried the beans to the kitchen.

  Mr. Bigg had gotten there ahead of them. He blocked the door, axe dangling from one hand. “Ivan, I’ve come to remind you that I despise tea. It is for gossipy old women. Since you overlooked it this fall, I’ve purchased my own supply of coffee. Once it arrives, I will expect a pot each morning and evening.”

  A growl erupted from behind the door, and the scaler jumped back, letting the door swing closed. Something heavy clanked against the other side. Catching sight of the children, Mr. Bigg straightened to his full height and left the room with dignified contempt.

  Sam pushed his way into the kitchen and barely dodged a flying saucepan. Ivan, his mustache quivering with rage, let loose with a torrent of angry Russian.

  Brother and sister exchanged amused glances. It seemed they weren’t the only ones who disliked the scaler.

  Chapter 6

  The coffee was delivered just as Mr. Bigg said. Watkins pulled up with the tote wagon on a Saturday afternoon two weeks later. Like always, Fiddlesticks and Johansen were recruited to help unload, but it was Sam who found the small crate with “coffee” marked in large block letters.

  He showed it to Grace, hid the lettering against his chest, and flashed a mischievous grin. “I’m going to set it on Ivan’s bunk instead of in the dingle,” he whispered.

  Pa came out of the bunkhouse just then. Blood stained his hands and the front of his shirt. “Johansen!” he called. “I’ve got that young swamper, Albert, in here. He gashed his leg open pretty good. I bound it up with balsam pitch but he better stay off it for a while. Will you keep an eye on him this afternoon?”

  Johansen nodded. “Sure, boss.”

  “You mean Hungry Al?” Fiddlesticks asked. “That boy’s all stomach and no brains. If his injury puts him off his grub, we can leave half this stuff in the wagon.”

  “Just get it unloaded, Sticks.”

  The old man cackled as he carried a bag of flour away.

  Pa climbed into the wagon and began shuffling items around. “Grace, come help me with something.”

  Reluctantly, Grace set down the sack of potatoes she had just picked up and walked around the back of the wagon.

  “I didn’t want you and Sam to get behind in your schoolwork, so I ordered some books for you. You can study in the evenings. We’ll bring them into the van.”

  But once in the office, Pa didn’t open the crate right away. Instead, he rinsed the blood off his hands—after cracking the ice in the basin—and took his time toweling them dry. Then he stood in front of her, feet apart, arms crossed over his chest.

  “I do have books in there,” he nudged the box with his toe, “and some warm things for you and Sam, but I wanted a moment to talk with you alone. We’ve been here four weeks, but the pace in camp is so hectic I’ve hardly seen you. Grace, how are you getting along?”

  His eyes were filled with the old warmth, the same compassion she remembered as a little girl. She desperately wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him how weary she was, how heavy-hearted, how much she ached to turn the clock back to happy days of long ago. But after such a lengthy silence between them, she didn’t know how to begin.

  He shifted. “Still angry?”

  The question snapped her out of her self-pity. Yes, she was still angry. For a moment sh
e had forgotten.

  The muscles in Pa’s shoulders tensed, and he brought one hand up to rub at the back of his neck. “That’s fine. Maybe I even deserve it. But I’m still concerned for you. I never intended you to be the only female in camp. Ivan only re-signed after he was certain Bigg wasn’t returning as foreman and the Mylans were bumped. He says you’re working hard and doing well, but I’d like to hear it from you. I want to know you’re all right, Grace.”

  Grace looked down at her feet. Tears sprang to her eyes, but she blinked them back.

  Pa sighed, and his voice sounded strained. “If there’s anything you need, Gracie, please come tell me.”

  He picked up a pry bar then and popped the top off the crate. Inside were the promised school books, two sturdy pairs of pants, a heavy woolen dress, and two identical pairs of boots. When he left, Grace picked through the titles, letting her tears drip onto the pages. She had come so close, so close to breaking.

  Choosing several of the books, she slipped into a pair of boots and returned to the kitchen where studying would be much warmer. But just as she approached the door, a roar sounded in the space beyond, followed by a torrent of angry gibberish. Then a small crate sailed out the door and skidded across the floor of the mess hall. Before it splintered against the far wall, Grace caught a glimpse of one stenciled word:

  “Coffee.”

  That evening when supper was done, Watkins brought the mailbag into the mess hall. Passing out letters was a highly anticipated routine that always launched the noisy Saturday night hullabaloo in the bunkhouse. Grace could hear the clamor through the kitchen door.

  “Bartholomew Phillips!” the driver called out.

  “That’s ‘Shorty’ to you, Watkins,” someone retorted amid quick laughter.

  “Saul Thompson!”

  “Ain’t no one here goes by Saul, neither. You must mean Doc.”