Riding the Flume

by Patricia Curtis Pfitsch

  She climbed up onto the flume and moved the boat until it was just inches from sliding into the flume. “Please let me be able to hold it,” she prayed, and nudged the boat into the water.

  Her prayer was answered. The boat lurched like an impatient pony, but the current was slow here, and Francie could hold it with one hand. “Please, let my father forgive me when he finds out,” she prayed again. Holding the boat with one hand and the side of the flume with the other, she eased herself onto the flat board seat. Then, taking a deep breath, she let go of the flume track and grabbed the narrow piece of wood in front of her. The water slapped the back of the boat, and it moved off down the flume.

  At first it was like floating on a raft down a lazy river. The flume was no more than four or five feet from the ground, and Francie’s perch was above the level of the water. The water swirled around the boat, gurgling peacefully. Francie leaned forward, shifting to her knees, and the boat bobbed down, then up again. She heard the grating sound of wood scraping against wood, but her momentum did not slow.

  In fact, as the flume track headed down the mountainside, the pace of the little boat increased. Francie gasped the first time cold water splashed in over the back of the boat, wetting her up to her waist. Her fingers gripped the wooden crosspiece, and she hunkered down, determined to hold on no matter what.

  As the mountainside became steeper, the scaffolding upon which the flume was built became higher. It was as if the little boat were rising up into the air. Now Francie was level with the tops of the trees—she felt like a bird flying through the forest. If she let go . . . if she held out her arms . . . but instead she grabbed the crossbar even more tightly.

  Water splashed up in front like a geyser, drenching her from head to foot. She could hardly breathe—she squeezed her eyes shut and leaned forward, blocking the onslaught of water just enough to grab a breath of air.

  She had no idea how fast she was going, but everything she fixed her gaze on whisked out of her vision as fast as it came into it—trees, rocks, outcroppings all went by in a green-and-brown blur. When she looked ahead, the flume track was heading straight down. It was impossible that the boat could stay on the track. “We’re going to fall,” she cried, curling herself into the smallest possible ball over the crossbar. She made her mind a blank and let the water stream over her back.

  Then the momentum slowed a bit. Francie sat up carefully, feeling the boat bob and lurch as it bounced from one side of the track to the other. She glanced back once, but the sight of the steep grade she’d just come down made her almost nauseated. She looked forward and did not turn around again.

  Looming ahead was the first flume house. Francie had thought her heart could not beat any harder without exploding, but she was wrong. Now she thought she could hear it beating over the waterfall noise of the water. She blinked against the splashing water and looked for the herder. He wasn’t at his post beside the flume; instead, he was sitting on his little porch, leaning back in a chair with his hat tipped over his eyes. “Please don’t let him see me,” she murmured as the boat flew by—but she didn’t dare look back to find out.

  She was getting used to the furious pace and the continual flow of water over and around her. Her knees were beginning to ache from kneeling in one position for so long, but there was nothing she could do to ease them—if she sat down she wouldn’t be able to balance as well. How long had she been traveling? How much farther would it be? She clenched her teeth together—she would just have to bear it.

  And then, suddenly, there was no more water. Wood screeched against wood and the flume boat stopped. She lost her grip on the crossbar and was flung the full length of the boat. She opened her eyes to find that she had overrun the water. She scrambled back to her knees and just had time to grab the crossbar before the water came tumbling after her, slapping the flat rear of the boat and jerking her forward.

  There was little time to think, but she realized how lucky she’d been. If she had been sitting down, or if the grade she’d been traveling had been much steeper, she might have been thrown out altogether. “I wonder if that’s what happened to the man who died,” she said. She peered over the side of the boat, watching the ground fall away below her. She was coming to the river, and Francie knew that this was where the flume rode farthest above the ground—to a height of almost one hundred feet. She checked to make sure she was in the center of the boat and held on tight. If the boat stopped again, she must be ready. She couldn’t count on being lucky another time.

  The boat rounded a bend and Francie could see another flume house ahead. She didn’t know how close together the houses were, but there must be more herders to pass before she got to St. Joseph. She couldn’t possibly hope to get by all of them without being seen. She hunkered down as she’d done before, but this herder was standing on a platform beside the flume. She heard him shout as she sped by.

  “But I can’t stop,” she murmured. “And I don’t see how he can stop me.”

  She was getting the hang of riding the flume. Each time the boat slowed, she rose up and leaned over the crossbar to give her knees a rest. When the boat gathered speed, she crouched low and moved with the rhythm of the water as it bobbed along. It reminded her a little of running.

  At the next flume house, the herder was standing on the platform. As she approached, she could tell he was expecting her—he had his long, curved picaroon held up and looked like he was going to try to hook her as she went by. “I’ll be stabbed,” she cried, and tried to scoot to the far side of the boat. He leaned forward, but at the last moment raised the hook as she whisked by. She heard him call out and saw his angry brows and his mouth twisted in a shout, but there wasn’t anything she could do. She couldn’t stop, either.

  How had he known she was coming? And then she remembered that each house was equipped with one of those newfangled telephone devices. It was one of the innovations Thomas Connor always bragged about. None of the houses or businesses in the mountains had telephones, but Connor had run lines to the flume houses so that each herder could telephone to the next. Of course they knew she was coming!

  At the next house the herder was standing on the platform, but he only watched her. And at the next, the man cheered. “You’re going to make it, girlie,” he shouted, grinning. “Not far now.” She was afraid to let go of the crossbar, but she smiled at him as she went by. They were letting her go, she thought, amazed. They thought she was doing it for fun.

  She was out of the mountains when the boat overshot the water again and stopped once more. She glanced back to see that the stream of water was only a trickle. Ahead was the town of St. Joseph—she could see the buildings in the distance. It couldn’t be more than a mile away now. She thought about the herders calling, letting the people in the mill yard know she was coming. They’d be waiting at the end of the line to cheer her. Or maybe to arrest her.

  She knew what she had to do. She grabbed the side of the flume and swung over, first one leg and then another until she was standing on the narrow ledge the herders used. Her clothes were soaking wet and her fingers were numb, but she was only about twenty feet from the ground here, and she climbed down easily. It wouldn’t take very long to walk to St. Joseph. They were expecting her to arrive on the flume boat, and they thought she was trying to make the ride all the way into town. They wouldn’t start looking for her until the empty boat floated into the mill yard.

  • Chapter Eighteen •

  The hot valley sun had begun to dry Francie’s clothes by the time she made it to town. She took her time, walking slowly at first until her cramped legs loosened and warmed. Her boots were soaked and felt as if they were rubbing her feet raw, but that couldn’t be helped. She would have plenty of time to sit down later. She walked beside the flume scaffolding for a while, but when she could see the road, she crossed the rough, open land and finished the journey that way. Following the flume would lead her straight to the finishing mill and into the arms of the sheriff!

&n
bsp; St. Joseph’s Main Street was, as usual, teaming with people. Francie’s stomach was growling and she was beginning to feel weak from hunger. She’d had nothing to eat since before dawn this morning.

  Mouth watering, she stopped to look in the window of a baker’s shop, but she had no money to buy food. For the first time in what seemed like hours, she thought about her parents. They were probably frantic with worry, even if they’d heard she’d been seen riding the flume. Especially if they heard that. She sighed and moved on.

  The offices of the St. Joseph Herald were not on Main—Francie found that out by walking the whole length of the street and halfway back again. Finally she stopped into the hardware store.

  She made her way through stacks of crates and barrels of nails to the counter, smoothing her damp hair back with her fingers and trying to ignore the curious look the clerk gave her. “Can you tell me where the office of the St. Joseph Herald is?”

  His eyes widened. He was young, almost as young as she was herself. “Were you in an accident?” he asked her.

  She looked down at her skirt, streaked with dirt and torn at the hem. “Sort of,” she answered. “If you could tell me where the newspaper office is?”

  “I’ll show you,” he said, his eyes narrowing with concern. He led her back out onto the wooden sidewalk in front of the store. “Go to the next side street and turn left—it’s two blocks on the right.”

  The newspaper offices were on the second floor. Francie could hear the clacking of the big press and voices calling to one another as she climbed the stairs. She felt as if she had lead weights tied to her feet—she could barely make the effort to lift her foot to the next step. She wondered suddenly what she would do if Mr. Court wasn’t in, or if he wouldn’t see her. “If he won’t talk to me about the sequoias,” she said, “maybe he’ll want a story about riding the flume.” She knew that some day she might be proud of what she’d done, but right now all she felt was numb and discouraged. She pushed open the door—it had one frosted glass window and “St. Joseph Herald Offices” in black letters on the front—and went in.

  She was immediately swallowed up in the noise. On her left was the pressroom. The floor vibrated with the clatter of the long press—its cylinders were turning and seemingly endless sheets of paper were whipping under them. Through the half-opened door she could see men in ink-smudged aprons pacing around the machine. They were shouting at each other, and Francie couldn’t tell if they were angry or excited. A linotype machine nearly filled the small middle room—another man in an even dirtier apron was studying a piece of paper pinned to a board on his right, and he was tapping on the keyboard without looking at it. On the right was a closed door with a frosted window like the one through which she’d already passed. “Franklin Court—Editor” was printed there in thick black letters. Francie knocked softly, and when she heard no answer, turned the handle and pushed the door open.

  “Can I help you?” The woman at the desk spoke before she looked up. She had dark brown hair caught up in long braids that wrapped around her head so many times she looked as if she were wearing a crown.

  “May I see Mr. Court, please?” asked Francie, shutting the door on the noisy rooms behind her. Hunger was beginning to make her feel weak. If she could only hold up until she saw Mr. Court.

  “Whom shall I say . . .” The woman’s voice faded into silence as she looked up and took in Francie’s dirty face and torn skirt. “What happened?” she asked, springing to her feet. “Are you all right?”

  Francie grabbed the corner of the desk to keep herself from falling. “I need to speak with Mr. Court,” she said, but the words came out in a whisper. “I’m Frances Cavanaugh.”

  The woman had come around the front of the desk. She took Francie by the elbow and half led, half carried her to the nearest chair. “Sit here,” she said. “You look awful.”

  “I . . .” Francie’s head was spinning. How could she explain the last few hours? “What time is it?”

  The woman glanced at the grandfather clock standing by the door. “Not quite two o’clock,” she said.

  “I think I’m just hungry,” Francie said. She tried to speak in her normal voice, but it came out just above a whisper. “I haven’t eaten since dawn, and I’ve . . .”

  “You’ve been in some kind of accident.” The woman smoothed Francie’s tangled hair. “Wait there.”

  She disappeared into the next room but came back almost immediately with a glass of milk and a small brown bun. “Here,” she said, putting the food down on a small table in front of Francie’s chair. “You eat. Mr. Court has been called out to cover a story, but he’ll be back soon. I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you. Whatever has happened to you, it certainly looks like news!”

  Francie ate the bun in silence—it was made of coarse flour and had raisins scattered through it. The woman had gone back to her desk and was typing something on a shiny new typewriter. The noise from the other rooms reached here only faintly; Francie rested her head on the paneled wall behind her and closed her eyes.

  The slam of the door jerked her awake. Mr. Court came bursting into the room like a tornado. “Damn and blast,” he shouted, throwing his coat in the direction of the coat-rack in the corner. “That girl didn’t show up! Hurst, the last flume herder, telephoned when she passed his station, but the boat came in empty. After half an hour the sheriff sent out a party on horseback to search.” He dug in his trouser pockets and came up with a handful of paper scraps, which he dumped onto his secretary’s desk. “We can’t hold up the evening edition much longer, but I don’t want to go to press without this story! Miss Jordan, we’ll give Sheriff Bennett half an hour. If we haven’t heard anything by then, I’ll walk over to the jail to see what’s up.”

  Miss Jordan had risen when he came through the door. Now she put a hand on his arm, stopping him as he was heading to a closed door behind her desk. This door did not have a window and was marked “F. Court—Private.” Miss Jordan nodded toward Francie. “This young woman has been waiting for you, Mr. Court.”

  He swung around and stared at Francie, taking in her torn and dirty clothes and her tangled hair.

  Francie jumped up. “I’m Francie Cavanaugh,” she said. “I need to talk to you about—”

  “You’re the young woman who rode the flume this morning.” His eyes seemed to bore into her as if he were testing her strength. Then his lip quirked up into what might have been a smile. “I’m glad to find you safe. How did you get here?” He motioned her to sit and pulled up another chair to sit beside her. She half expected him to pull out a tablet of paper and begin taking notes. He didn’t, but she got the feeling he was remembering every word she said.

  “I was afraid the sheriff would be waiting for me. I couldn’t let him arrest me, not before I’d talked to you. So I left the flume before the boat came to town.”

  Mr. Court raised his eyebrows and sat back in his chair. “Usually it’s the newspaperman who goes looking for the story. Not the story that comes to the newspaperman. Surely you knew I’d be waiting to interview you when you came into the lumberyard. How could I resist? A woman riding the flume—that’s news!”

  Francie clasped her hands together so tightly her fingers turned white. “It’s not riding the flume I want to talk to you about—it’s about cutting down Carrie’s sequoia. Did you get my letter? Can you help?”

  Mr. Court hit his forehead with the palm of his hand, and then laughed out loud. “Frances Cavanaugh! I knew you seemed familiar. You’re the girl who was going to count the rings of that old sequoia stump for me. I did get your letter, but I was in San Francisco until yesterday afternoon. I only saw it last night when I stopped in the office on my way home.” He crossed one ankle over the other knee, brushing invisible lint off his immaculate trousers. “You’d better begin at the beginning.”

  So Francie told him everything, from finding Carrie’s note in the knothole of the stump to her wild ride down the flume to St. Joseph. “It was the only
way I could get here fast enough,” she said.

  “You did bring the will with you, didn’t you?” Mr. Court asked, looking around.

  Francie felt herself blush, but she reached inside the bodice of her shirtwaist and pulled out the oilskin pouch. She took out the will and handed it to Mr. Court.

  He unfolded it in silence. He looked at it for a long moment, and Francie could see his eyes following the lines of print across the page. He turned it over and then held it up to the light. “It certainly looks genuine,” he admitted. “But I’ll take it over to the land office. They’ll have the deed on record.” He looked up, not at Francie, but past her, as if he could see something on the wall behind her. She had to fight the temptation to turn her head to see what he was looking at.

  “What I don’t understand,” he murmured, “is how the lumber company could have a deed to this land if it belongs to Robert Granger.” Then he came to his feet as suddenly as if he were a jack-in-the-box on a spring. “That question can be answered quickly enough.” He grabbed his coat and shrugged his arms into the sleeves. “Never mind the sheriff, Miss Jordan. Just take down Miss Cavanaugh’s story for the evening edition.” He turned to Francie. “Repeat what you told me,” he said. “I’m going to the land office and the courthouse.” He put his hand on the door and then turned back. “I’ll telegraph to your parents, too, and let them know you’re safe.” He pointed at Miss Jordan. “And see if you can find Miss Cavanaugh some clean clothes.” And he was gone.

  Telling her story to Miss Jordan was easier than telling it to Mr. Court—Miss Jordan nodded and smiled, making her feel as if everything she said made perfect sense.