* * * *
“Where is he?” Simon asked as Garrett shifted his weight onto his right foot. “If it’s important enough we needed to leave Beth alone with Aunt June, the damned fool could at least be on time.”
“He’ll be here.” Garrett checked the dense trail, barely visible under the straggling vegetation. The note he’d received made him nervous. Something was in the air, but God only knew what. “It’s not like anyone knows who Beth is, let alone the fact that she’s down there.”
“Why’d you leave her alone with Aunt June anyway? Do you want to get her discovered?” Simon shuffled his feet.
Perhaps he did. Truth be told, he didn’t know why he’d handed her over to his aunt, or how he felt about her being there in the first place. Maybe it was in secret hopes that she’d get caught and sent back home, but it may be that he needed to get his head straight so he could mull over the situation, and the tone of the letter gave him pause.
The selfish part of him wanted to spend what little time he had with her, but the rational side needed her to be tucked back home in Missoula where he could fight to forget the way her blue eyes sparkled like the top of Seeley Lake on a sunny day whenever she smiled.
Garrett stiffened at the crunch of footsteps.
“I didn’t know if you’d gotten my note.” A pinch-faced logger he recognized from the Bonner camp approached. “I didn’t want anyone else to know we were meeting. Best keep this between us.” The man extended his hand. “Name’s Jessip.”
“What’s so important we couldn’t speak in camp?” Garrett shook the logger’s hand.
“There’s something brewin’ from some of the other logging companies. I’ve been offered a job of sorts. One that pays mighty well, if you get my drift.”
“What sort of job?” Garrett eyed Jessip with care. He didn’t miss the hint in the man’s voice, but he wasn’t about to pay for worthless information.
Jessip stood quiet.
“Out with it,” Simon snapped.
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
Simon took a threatening step forward. “We don’t—”
“How much?” Garrett asked.
“They offered me a thousand dollars, but I’ll take five hundred, and you get me a contract for a steady job.”
Garrett extended his hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal. I’ll contact the mill, put in a good word, and request a contract. It should come through, as long as the information is important and legitimate. The money I can’t give you until the end of the season.”
The man spit in his palm and shook Garrett’s offered hand. “I’ll look for you at the Missoula train depot after the pay is handed out.”
“What do we need to know?” Simon asked.
“I’ve been tasked to make things happen around camp, you know, to stop the logs from getting to the mill.”
“Why?” Simon looked ready to spit nails.
“They didn’t say.” Jessip smoothed his left eyebrow with his forefinger. “They said they’d give me a thousand to stop the logs from going downstream.”
“Find out,” Garrett commanded. “You’ll get your five hundred and a contract, provided nothing happens to the logs.”
With a smile that lifted only the right side of his face, Jessip agreed. “I’ll send you a notice when I know more. We can meet here again.”
Garrett raised his head in silent accord and watched as the man tipped his hat and bid his adieus. Both Garrett and Simon stood silent until Jessip was no longer within earshot.
Garrett started down the trail.
“What do you want to do, Gar?” Simon sped up to keep pace.
“Keep an eye on the camp. If anything at all happens, we meet up with Jessip. I don’t know if we can trust him. A thousand is a lot of money to turn down.”
“Why would someone want the drive to fail?” Simon veered off the trail near the cabins and picked his way through the forest vegetation, headed toward the cook fire.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
“Hopefully the man has enough honor to keep his side of the bargain. If someone is trying to sabotage the drive, we could use an inside man,” Simon said before entering the firelight of camp.
Garrett answered with a nod and followed. With any luck, they had stopped an attack. He cursed his bad luck. First Beth, and then a saboteur. The other logging companies had to choose this of all years to plan an attack. He’d wanted to go out silently, and without notice or fuss. He had a gut feeling that bad things lay ahead.
Chapter 5
“Where have you both been?” Beth chided when Simon and Garrett trudged into camp. How was she supposed to find the traitor if she was paired off with a matronly woman who wanted to do nothing more than watch Beth’s every move? At least with Garrett, she could search the entire camp for anything untoward. He’d watch over her no matter what, regardless of his gruff ways and resistance.
The fire illuminated their forms as they walked through the center of camp and headed toward the tracks. She followed them to the open door of the railcar just outside the reach of the firelight near Aunt June’s cabin. Darkness now blackened the creaking trees and silhouetted a few stray loggers. To her left the firelight licked the low-hanging branches and the men’s faces who sat around the fire ring. She turned her gaze back to Simon. “You missed supper. I almost set out to look for you.”
“Never traipse the forest alone.” Garrett reached in and grabbed her bag from inside the railcar.
He tossed it to Simon, who handed it to her with a scowl. “I’m not carrying your luggage, Brent. You’re a man. You take it.”
Through the moonlight, Beth made out the disapproving glare Garrett sent her brother. She pursed her lips to stop from smiling. He was a gentleman used to the rules of society, and not the easy way she and Simon behaved toward one another.
“I’ll carry it.” She reached for the bag, but Garrett snatched it up first. She took a small step toward the bag. “I don’t plan to shirk on my duties as a man.”
The shadows on Garrett’s face changed and once again he wore his usual scowl. He moved the bag away from her reach, but kept silent. If her brother were to sport a constant glare and frown the way he did, she’d tease him without mercy. But on Garrett the surly look made her heart melt. What was wrong in his life that made him want to keep the world at a distance by casting such a sour expression?
He reached in to grab the other two bags, tossed one to Simon, and then marched toward a small cabin on the outskirts of camp. “She’ll take a corner bunk, next to you. I’ll take the single cot near the door.”
Beth scrambled to turn and keep pace with the large men. Once she caught up with her brother, he gave her an elbow to the ribcage. She felt more than saw him gesture toward Garrett, and she understood. At least she thought she did. Although Garrett was one of the leaders in camp, he opted to take the bed most didn’t want. Beth tightened her lips to hold back a smile as memories of Simon’s stories surfaced from when he was a camp greenhorn. The men back then had not only made him take the cold, lone bunk, but had even hidden the bed in the trees behind the cabin and forced him to sleep out in the cold under the canopy of evergreens.
She was about to nudge her brother and remind him of the story when a little log building emerged from the darkness, its doors open to reveal an even darker shade of black, as if welcoming them to their new home with a foreboding grin. A flicker of light flashed in the window to the right as someone lit a match. Light illuminated the inside and made the house shine like one of the jack-o’-lanterns she and Simon would carve on All Hallow’s Eve.
“It doesn’t look big enough for all the men.” She strained to keep step with Garrett and his long strides.
“This is one of the temporary lodges,” Garrett said. “There are three more for the Missoula camp. They’re designed s
o that we can take them apart and move camp once the trees are all downed in this area.”
“Oh,” she managed to say as she hurried to follow. Her heart beat hard. She knew when she started she’d have to share a cabin with men, but now it was real. She ran a quick hand over her stomach to try and stop the nausea threatening to make her vomit. “I should take my bag inside myself.”
With a small huff of agreement, Garrett handed her belongings to her and then walked through the door. His shirt illuminated with the light from the cabin as she followed him through.
The ambiance in the room warmed with the small flicker of the candle. Ten bunks crammed into the room, with one lone cot along the wall next to the door. A few crudely made log chairs sat about the room between the beds as if waiting to be used. Three men stood unpacking their belongings, their packs tossed haphazardly on the gray-striped mattresses.
“You won’t mind if I take this bunk, will ya, Luther?” Simon slid by her and elbowed past Luther to toss the logger’s bag and stack of shirts on the next bunk over.
Luther turned a dark shade of red, yet he seemed to emit a shadow of gray when he turned an icy stare to Simon and Beth.
“Don’t touch my belongins,” he warned, one corner of his mouth curled into a snarl.
“No need to get your back up. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. I just need to keep the little shave tail where I can mind his business is all, between me and the wall.”
“What’s a shave tail?” Beth whispered to Garrett.
“Someone like you. Unexperienced,” he responded, not taking his eyes off the altercation near the bunk.
“I don’t like people touchin’ my stuff,” Luther growled.
“All right. We won’t touch your stuff.” Simon turned and raised an eyebrow only she and Garrett could see.
Luther jerked his pack open and yanked his belongings out to toss them on the mattress, all the while keeping one glaring eye on the small group. Simon turned his back to the angry logger, so Beth shifted, bringing them in a small circle.
Garrett cleared his throat and relaxed his shoulders. He motioned with his head toward her. “Brent should be fine on the bottom. Keep an eye on Luther. He seems off this spring.”
Simon nodded. “I think he’s still pissed that he got passed up for the Devil May Cares.”
Both men slid a condemning stare toward her.
“What?” She shifted her eyes back and forth between Garrett and her brother.
“If you didn’t blackmail me,” Simon said, “Luther would work for Garrett.”
Garrett shook his head. “Not necessarily. I don’t know if I trust Luther.”
“But we wouldn’t be in this mess with Beth,” Simon continued. “He’s the better man for the job…no, he’s the only man for the job.”
He was right. What had she done? She’d intruded upon not only her brother’s life, but Garrett’s, and now ruined Luther’s chance at his coveted job.
But she couldn’t tell Simon how guilty she felt or she’d risk both men grabbing her up right there and tossing her on the first train home. Whether Garrett trusted Luther or not was beside the point. Perhaps after this ordeal was over she could help convince Garrett to take the disgruntled logger under his tutelage to become a riverman. At least if she helped get Luther onto the crew later, she wouldn’t feel as bad taking his job now.
“What does she have on you anyway?” Garrett asked in a voice so quiet she had to strain to hear over the noise of the men behind her.
Her brother shuffled his feet in the powdery dirt of the floorless cabin. “Ah, you don’t want to know.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Beth chimed in a more womanly tone than she’d intended, and then lowered her voice when Luther turned to glare at her once more. “I found him in a…precarious position with a woman.”
“Is that the whole of it?” The space between Garrett’s eyebrows creased and he gave the same look as her brother sported. Men seemed to have only two expressions, outright angry and happy for the moment.
“She was married to someone of consequence.” Simon tipped one side of his mouth in a wry smile. There was the third expression men sported: guilt.
“Ah.” Garrett nodded. “I believe you’re right. It’s best I not know. You’re certain the secret is worth risking your sis—Brent’s life?”
Simon rounded his shoulders and slouched as if resigned to his fate. He should be. The woman in question was the old white-haired mayor’s nineteen-year-old wife. The woman he ordered from New York City in one of those mail-order bride flyers the passenger train brought in last year.
“Let’s just say if the man was to find out, I would spend the remainder of my days in the hoosegow, staring at the gallows.”
Garrett turned a questioning look in her direction. She nodded. “It’s true.”
“Say no more. I don’t want to get involved.” Garrett turned to his bunk and shoved his pack beneath his bed.
“Hey, Gar,” one of the three other men in the room called. Beth turned and recognized Clint as he sat down on his bunk. Like Garrett, the man sported broad shoulders and a sturdy frame, but he lacked the underlying sense of passion and power that Garrett exhibited. Clint leaned over to rest his elbows on his knees. “Is the shave tail gonna take Dick’s job in the bateau?”
“As soon as I train him he will.” Garrett pointed at Dick. “As long as you don’t mind being a log jumper.”
Dick shook his head.
“Just to be absolutely certain,” she said. “The bateau is the boat the rivermen use, right? Not the one the cook does. I think I kept getting the two mixed up whenever Simon would tell me of his adventures here.”
Clint and the other man, whom she recognized as Blue, burst into laughter, as Simon shot her a vile look. Her heart started to beat fast. She tried not to chew on her lower lip at the slip up, hoping she didn’t just give away her secret. Good Lord. It was way more difficult to check her womanly habits than she’d thought.
“Shave tail,” Blue called, and turned his back to dig through his belongings.
“Maybe he should start with cuttin’ the firewood for camp. He can work with the Miller boy from the Bonner camp.” Clint laughed. “Better yet, have the Miller boy row the bateau, and let the shave tail do the firewood.”
Blue laughed at his friend’s joke, but her heartbeat slowed to a normal pace.
“So it’s the riverman boat?” She squinted toward her brother.
How would a man behave in such a situation? She wasn’t certain if Clint and Blue didn’t like her, or were razzing her like Simon and his friends had done at the schoolhouse yard when they were young. Beth gave a pleading glance to Simon.
“You brought this on yourself by sounding like a confused ninny.” He narrowed his eyes in a warning she didn’t fail to miss.
“I didn’t sign on to cut firewood.” She gave her best impression of a man not afraid of anything, although her stomach jumped to her throat. It was possible she couldn’t physically handle the arduous tasks of the riverman, but she was hell-bent on trying. “I signed on to be a Devil May Care.”
“We’ll see, shave tail.” Clint’s voice dripped with unmistakable challenge. That was one hurdle she was anxious to leap over. Beth would prove herself to Garrett and his men. She couldn’t fail. The lives of not only her brother, but the dozens of families relying on the survival of Big Mountain Lumber Mill, depended on her success. Whether they knew it or not.
* * * *
Beth lurched upright in her bed as a terrifying screech echoed throughout the cabin. “What in heaven’s name is that?” Blazes! She’d forgotten to talk like a man. She cleared her throat. With any luck, the slumbering men hadn’t noticed.
The men in their bunks grumbled.
“Shut the hell up!” someone yelled from across the room.
Beth relax
ed. Thank God they’re too tired to realize my little slip up.
“It’s the train headed out,” Simon mumbled. “It means we have one more hour of sleep before we have to wake up. Go back to bed.”
“Blast.” Beth jerked back the covers and scurried into her boots. She tucked in the blue work shirt she’d bought with the button up square bib adorning the breast, and threw Garrett’s jacket over the top. “Aunt June told me to be at the fire before the train leaves.”
“I want biscuits and gravy today,” Simon said sleepily as he turned over in his bed. “Eggs and bacon.”
Darkness shrouded the room. Beth made her way to the door, but bumped into a hard body. The faded hint of Eau de Cologne drifted on the breeze from the crack in the window, and she knew Garrett stood before her. He steadied her like he did that first day on the street. He bent his head low until she felt his heat graze the side of her neck. His breath tickled her skin and made her stomach flutter when he whispered. “Wait for me.”
She nodded even though she knew he couldn’t see her through the night, and then forced her knees to carry her as she made her way outside.
A few minutes passed before he quietly slipped out of the cabin door, easing it shut behind him. He turned to her. “I’ll walk you to camp.”
She nodded again, not wanting anyone inside to overhear. Garrett started down the trail, and she followed.
“How did you sleep?” he asked once they were far enough away from the cabins not to disturb the occupants. The tension eased from her shoulders the farther away they drew from where the men slept.
“As well as can be expected.” She tripped over something sticking out from the ground, but caught herself and continued to follow. “I’m not used to crude cots with straw-stuffed bedding.”
“I can have a feather mattress brought up for you if you’d like.”
Beth smiled. The man who yesterday wanted her gone, now offered to provide her with comforts not afforded to any other loggers. Although the thought of a soft mattress was tempting, she wouldn’t give in. What would that look like to the rest of the crew? “I’m all right. It might look suspicious if I get a soft mattress, and everyone else sleeps on straw.”
White Water Passion Page 6