by Jason Heit
Looking back, he probably shouldn’t have asked for MacNair’s girl. The dark hair and the green eyes had been a small reflection of Katherine; perhaps, too much. When he closed his eyes and thought of Katherine, he couldn’t be sure now of her face. Had her skin always been so snowy white? Her face soft and round? Wasn’t there a blush in her cheeks? Freckles? Her face strong and angular? The picture was all too fuzzy now.
Back at the camp, there were slow changes about. It seemed at first that Henry was avoiding him. Peter’d been too much in his own thoughts to notice when the boy took off. It had started slow. A few minutes here and there, at lunch or in the morning before the toppers started up for the day, Henry would drift over to Cormac or MacNair to ask how they tied off their flipline when they started to top a big fir, or how to tell if the line hooks were fixed to get the right fall on the bottom half of the tree. When it was time to get to work, Henry would come back saying nothing, and Peter wouldn’t ask. It was up to the kid to tell him. It wasn’t his business otherwise, but it made Peter feel more distance between him and Henry than the 12 feet of saw that usually separated them.
The following week, Cormac and MacNair took a few minutes out from their breaks to show Henry the tools and tricks of the topper – how to use the spurred leg braces and carry an axe and saw behind you from a shoulder strap. He’d even begun to do some climbing, 20 or 30 feet, with borrowed leg braces and a flipline.
Peter did his best not to let on that he’d noticed Henry’s training. He didn’t want to upset the kid, but mostly he didn’t want to lose Henry on the other side of the whip. His small little world had changed too much in too short a time. He wanted the kid to stay where he was. He was a good partner. He didn’t complain much. It was sad the kid hadn’t said any more about it. That probably disappointed Peter the most; he wondered if the kid felt it too.
That Saturday, Peter ate his lunch alone. He took it from the cook shack and sat in a patch of sunlight with his back against the trunk of a cedar tree. Eying Spence coming toward him, Peter tore off a piece of his sandwich and popped it in his mouth.
“You have a minute?” Spence asked. Peter nodded through his mouthful of sandwich, and Spence sank to his haunches. “I’m going to have you join the buckers for the afternoon.” Spence picked a small stone from off the ground and rubbed it between his thumb and index finger. “We’re giving the kid a chance to top a big one.”
Peter finished chewing his food, then took a drink of water from the glass jar he carried with him. “I’d like to see him do it.”
“Sure,” Spence said, “if the kid doesn’t mind an audience.”
Peter nodded and Spence clapped him on the shoulder and walked back to the cook’s wagon.
After he’d finished eating, Peter made his way over to where Cormac and MacNair were going over their instructions and last minute reminders with Henry. The kid was sure a different animal from Cormac and MacNair. He was broad shouldered and thick muscled, while they were taller, lean-muscled men. It might take him longer to get up there, thought Peter, but he’ll be fast when it comes to the real work.
“You don’t get scared any more?” Peter heard Henry ask.
“Things gets easier when ye know ye ain’t supposed to be here,” MacNair replied.
“Don’t listen to him, kid,” Cormac said. “It’s good to have a little fear in you. Keeps you sharp. Makes the job fun.”
Peter caught MacNair’s glance. “Aye, these are the things a man does, if ye ain’t a scunner like the Hun,” MacNair said.
Cormac looked over to Peter who was still some ten feet away from them. “Enough, MacNair.” Cormac turned to the kid. “Give those spurs a test, will you.”
Henry nodded, then he looked to Peter and flashed him a weak smile. Henry took a step toward the tall standing fir and jabbed his left spur into the tree.
“That leg brace feel tight enough?” Cormac asked.
“It’s good,” Henry replied.
“Try the other one.”
Henry pulled the left spur clean and heel-kicked the right spur into the wood. “It’s good.”
MacNair looked to Peter. “Ain’t ye supposed to be cutting logs in twelves?”
Ignoring MacNair, Peter addressed Henry, “You mind if I watch you cut this in two?”
Henry smiled. “That’d be good.”
“Now, kid, we want this one to fall to this side.” Cormac waved his hand to the southwest. “You got plenty of space to make that happen.”
Henry nodded.
“You ready?”
“I’m ready.”
“Good,” Cormac said.
Henry walked the flipline around the trunk of the fir tree, then tied it off around the belt harness. He strapped the belt harness around his waist and checked that the flipline and the belt straps were secure.
MacNair tied another rope to the back side of Henry’s belt loop. “For the line hooks.”
Henry tightened the shoulder strap from which his axe hung and gave the flipline a snap of his wrists, once then twice, so it hung about shoulder height on the opposite side of the tree trunk. He jabbed the right spur into the wood and stepped with his left. He stepped again, and flipped the line once more. He took a quick step with his right then left, and again, then flipped the line.
“Good,” Cormac said. “Keep breathing.”
The kid climbed on some 30 feet and took a look at his progress.
“Just keep looking up,” Cormac called to him.
Henry nodded and kept moving, the flipline grabbing tight as he stepped higher and higher.
Sixty feet high.
“He’s slowing,” MacNair said to Cormac.
“He’s good,” Cormac said.
Peter nodded his head in agreement. Henry was slowing, but Peter knew that he could do it. The kid was moving steadily, checking his feet and the bite of his spurs, but he was still moving and that was the most important thing.
A few more minutes – a small eternity – passed before the kid stopped about 100 feet up and set his spurs into the wood and his flipline tight at waist level.
“He’s a bit short,” MacNair said.
“Ah, it’s a smaller one,” Cormac said.
Henry’s first few swings of the axe looked soft to Peter, but soon the kid was really throwing some wood. A small smile crossed Peter’s face, as Henry whittled the wood away to a point, like a sharpened pencil. Then the kid set up so his final strokes would steer the treetop to the southwest.
“A wee bit more,” MacNair said.
“Stand clear.”
The kid took another swing. There was a crack. Henry pulled the axe free and dropped down a foot as the top snapped and the tree swung like a pendulum. “Timber” came the shout, a moment too late.
The tree landed hard. Throwing branches and earth from the ground. The men had moved to a safe distance, but still they turned away or raised a hand to protect their faces from the flying debris.
“Woohoo!” Cormac shouted.
MacNair lifted his fingers to his mouth and sent a whistle up to the kid. Peter waved. And the kid smiled down at them.
Henry topped two more trees that afternoon. On the wagon back to camp, Cormac and MacNair promised Henry a night to remember. Food. Drinks. Women. Peter hadn’t the mind to drink. He was wrapped in his thoughts. The kid was moving on; Spence would have Henry topping trees when they were back at work Monday morning. As for himself, he’d have a new partner on the saw or he’d be on the bucking crew. Maybe it was time for a bigger change; he didn’t know. He thought of Katherine, or was it Geraldine? He wanted to tell her about Katherine. How she reminded him of her. He hadn’t told her anything of Katherine, and she hadn’t asked. It’d be a silly thing to do, to tell her, but who else was there?
-
Peter finished his supper and his second beer and
left the others at the hotel. He had to see her. He had to sort his feelings. Things had changed and he was running out of reasons to be where he was.
He walked down the alleyway in the shadows of dusk. He asked the man for Geraldine.
“You want a bath too?”
“Not tonight,” Peter said.
“Geraldine,” called the man.
She came out of her room wearing the same dress as before. He tipped his hat to her.
“Frank, you returned.” She seemed to smile.
Sober, the name hit him like a needle to the arm, pinching old muscles buried deep. He pursed his lips. “I’ve been thinking of you.”
She nodded. “Follow me.” And the corners of her mouth raised somewhat mechanically before she turned down the hallway.
In her room, his eyes landed on the bouquet of wildflowers. It had been freshened since he’d last been there. He recognized the pink and white lilies; as for the other flowers – some yellow and some white – he had no idea of their names.
“You like the flowers?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I collect them on my walks.”
He nodded and turned to her.
“I didn’t think I’d see you again. Maybe last week –”
He rubbed his jaw. She thinks I’ve come back to have what I missed, he thought.
“So, you’re feeling better,” she said.
He raised his eyes to her slowly. “I’m better.”
She pressed herself against him. “You ain’t smelling like a distillery this time. Would you do better with a drink? I want a drink.” She turned to her nightstand, pulled out a slim flask, and offered it to Peter.
Peter shook his head.
“Suit yourself.” She took a drink from the flask and let out a long breath. He watched, nervously, as she slid off her dress.
“Wait,” he said.
“It’s getting late, Frank.” Her hand slipped open his pants button, then slid below. She took him in her hand.
He felt himself respond to her touch, but he pulled away from her. “No.”
She shook her head and quickened her stroke. “What do you want? Do you want me to hold you like you were my little baby boy?”
He grabbed her by the wrist. “I made a mistake.”
She let go of him. “Then go.”
He looked at her, not understanding, as she slipped her arms through the sleeves of her dress.
“You heard me.” Her voice raised. “Get out.”
“Please, Geraldine –”
“You want something else?”
He nodded, sheepishly.
“I’m not your mother or whoever you’re looking for –”
“Her name was Katherine. She wasn’t –”
The door opened and the man from the front stood in its frame looking at Peter, then Geraldine. “Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No, he’s just playing games.”
The man looked at her, then Peter, suspiciously.
“I’ll be leaving,” Peter said as he tucked his shirt into his pants. He took one last look at Geraldine. She looked more like Katherine than she ever had before – the Katherine of Kaidenberg, broken and filled with disappointment – and he was surprised he hadn’t noticed earlier. Then he turned and left the brothel.
-
Sunday morning Peter was back fishing the river. He raised his fishing rod and watched the line lift through the water tracing a ‘v’ as it travelled its path. This always reminded him of a string of snow geese in flight. He slowly reeled in the line.
It was past noon when the kid arrived.
“I didn’t think you would come,” Peter said.
The kid looked hung-over – red-eyed and pale. “I didn’t either.” Henry stood there watching Peter cast his line into the river, its banks full, racing for the Pacific. “Are you mad at me?”
“No,” Peter said. “You will be a good topper.”
“I need to do it, Peter,” Henry said. “Mother lost her job now that the soldiers are back and looking for work, and this’ll be an extra five dollars a week.”
Peter smiled close-lipped. “It’s good you take care of your family.” The kid was quiet, although Peter figured there was still plenty on the boy’s mind. Peter took a step toward him and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Henry.”
The two fished together that afternoon for the last time. Peter was going home. There was no reason to be away any longer. He doubted that’d he’d stay in Kaidenberg for good, but long enough to see his family and see what else he’d been missing; and, of course, to say goodbye to Katherine.
He’d wait a week, maybe more, before telling Spence he was done. He didn’t want Henry thinking it was because of him, because it wasn’t.
-
That Friday, April 18, 1919, Henry Sutherland died from a 110-foot fall down a 400-year-old Douglas Fir. None of the men saw what happened; he’d already begun topping the tree. It seemed that the spur on his left leg brace had broken, perhaps mid-swing, and the kid couldn’t recover.
Peter gnawed his cheek as he helped Cormac load Henry’s broken body onto the back of the wagon. He’d had to look away at the sight. Henry. The poor kid. This, for five more dollars a week. It made Peter sick.
“Back to work,” Spence hollered at the men. “Nothing more we can do.” And Peter watched as the men around him slowly picked up their axes and trudged off through the broken forest. “Go on, Peter,” said Spence. “Don’t make me dock your wages.”
Peter stared back at Spence. “He wanted to get a boat one day,” he said. “And fish on the ocean.”
“I wish he could’ve, Peter.”
“Me too,” Peter rubbed his jaw. “I’m leaving, Spence. I’d planned to tell you later on, but now…” He shook his head. “You can dock my wages; it don’t matter to me.”
Spence sighed. “I ain’t going to dock your wages, Peter. I just need the guys to work through it or it’ll be harder tomorrow.”
Peter nodded. “Let me take the kid back to his family.”
“You’d do that?”
“I need to.”
Saturday evening, Cormac and MacNair took up a collection from the men. Two hundred and seventy-two dollars from 54 men. Leahy added to it. Made it an even $300. Sunday morning, Peter accompanied Henry’s casket aboard the train to Nanaimo, and from there onto the steamship to Vancouver. It was morning when the steamship docked.
Mrs. Sutherland lived in a small yellow house on Heatley Street. Peter took a deep breath, set his suitcase on the ground, and knocked on the door. He’d never done this sort of thing before, but he felt obliged to see her in person. The kid had been his friend, perhaps his only true friend since Karl Ziegler had been hauled away to the internment camp.
The door opened half-way and a woman with chestnut-coloured hair and dark-ringed eyes looked out from behind it. The woman wore a tight-faced expression and when she looked up at Peter, he could see there was anger in her eyes. He’d been told Leahy had sent a telegraph informing her of the accident and to expect someone. Yet he supposed he’d imagined Henry’s mother reacting differently.
“Mrs. Sutherland?”
She nodded.
“Peter Eberle.” He felt the woman’s stare on his face and, for a moment, Peter thought he might lose his balance. There was something unsettling about this woman, Henry Sutherland’s mother. “I am sorry,” he said. “I worked with your son, Henry. He was a good man.”
“Man?” She shook her head. “He was only eighteen.”
Peter nodded.
She left the door open and walked into the shadows. “Close the door behind you.”
Peter picked up his suitcase and stepped into the house. Mrs. Sutherland stood in the small kitchen wringing her hands in her staine
d apron. The room was dim, the curtains on the west-facing window offered only a fragmented patchwork of early morning light. She was alone: where were Henry’s sisters? Peter wondered. She looked to the wood stove and the busy countertop, then turned around to the small table, picked a potato sack off of it and set it on the floor. She looked at Peter and pointed to one of the mismatched chairs around the table. “Coffee?”
“Please.” Peter took another step into the room, gripping his suitcase handle with both hands in front of him.
Mrs. Sutherland poured Peter a cup of coffee and set it on the table. Peter took a seat next to the coffee, then waited for Mrs. Sutherland to take her chair.
“Mr. Leahy’s man made the arrangements. St. Paul’s.” She shook her head. “I ain’t hardly taken a step west of Cambie Street since before the war started.”
Peter took a sip of coffee. It was weak. Lukewarm. He set the cup down carefully. There were only a few things he’d wanted to say to her. He hadn’t any real understanding of her world or this city; he knew as much about it as he did about crows’ nests or bears’ dens. He looked at Mrs. Sutherland. “Henry was a good worker. I liked working with him. We fished on Sundays.”
The woman sat there silent. Peter waited for her to say something. He took another sip of the bad coffee and noticed a thin stream of tears tracing the woman’s face.
“What are we going to do? There’s no good work for us with the soldiers back and the Chinese working for cheap,” Henry’s mother cried.
Peter reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a thick envelope. “This is for you and the girls.” He set it on the table halfway between him and Mrs. Sutherland. “We passed the hat.”
Mrs. Sutherland reached for the envelope, then paused with her hand on it. She opened the envelope and flipped through the bills. Once she was done counting them, she tucked the envelope in her apron pocket. “I know it ain’t proper to count it out in front of you,” she said, almost defiantly, “but you can’t put meat in front of a hungry dog and not expect it to eat.”