by Jane Hoppen
“My pa’s dead,” the boy pleaded. “The horse was my only way up here. I need the work. It’s only my ma and my brothers and sisters now.”
“What’s your name, kid?” Johnny asked.
“Henry,” the boy said. “Henry Jankowski.”
“A Pole and a greenhorn, huh?” Johnny said.
The boy lowered his head.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Johnny hesitated a moment and then nodded.
“All right,” he said. “Don’t make me regret this. Greenhorns only get one chance.”
The jacks who had gathered around laughed and hooted as the boy got off the horse.
“Horse shed is that way,” Johnny said. “Don’t take all day.”
The other jacks laughed again. As the boy headed to the shed, with the horse plodding behind, Evelyn grabbed her pack and trudged toward the bunkhouse thinking this was a land of little empathy. As a mother, she wanted to protect the boy, defend him, but she moved on. When she reached the bunkhouse, she paused, took a deep breath, and tried to steady herself. For the first time, she felt fear. She pushed the door open, and as soon as she entered the bunkhouse, the stench that rose around her almost made her double over. Men were squeezed into every corner of the small space, and their voices droned on like cicadas, a constant scratching sound.
Evelyn scanned the room and spotted a vacant lower bunk. She walked over to it and put down her pack. This will be my home for the next few months, she thought with trepidation. Before she could think another thought, she turned and quickly headed toward the door. She bolted into the woods, and when she was out of sight, she bent over, her hands on her knees, and vomited, bile pushing past her lips. Evelyn felt tears well up in her eyes, and she straightened herself and gulped in air to settle her nerves.
“You can do this,” she said to herself. “You have no choice.”
The rush of the winds high in the trees sounded like a plummeting waterfall, almost deafening. She looked up at the trees, swaying side to side, and felt a sense of calmness. She turned from the woods and headed back to the bunkhouse.
* * *
Evelyn went to the bunk she had selected, the top one now occupied by a man with his legs dangling over the side. He was a tall, rather skinny, long-limbed logger, who appeared to be nearly seven feet tall. He had a mane of stringy dirty blond hair and his beard, not thick, but wispy, hung over his chest.
“I was wondering who my new bunkmate was,” he said as Evelyn sat. “I’m Jack. Folks here call me Whiskey Jack, though the whiskey part doesn’t account for much in these parts. Not a drop in sight.”
Evelyn reached out and firmly shook his hand.
“Keep an eye on that one,” the man in the bunk to the left of Evelyn’s said. “Word is that if you get in a fight with Whiskey Jack, he’ll wrap himself around you like a boa constrictor and squeeze the life right out of you.”
Whiskey Jack reached down with one long arm and smacked the man on the back of the head.
“Hey,” the man growled.
“Don’t pay him any mind,” Whiskey Jack said. “We call him Gabbie. He’ll talk your head off if you let him, but he does tell a damn good story.”
Gabbie was a stocky man with wavy dark brown hair, a scrubby bush of a beard that was trimmed to just below his chin, and a slanted grin. Evelyn glanced from one man to the other, trying to discern how serious they were. She had heard stories about the fights at the camps.
“I’m George Bauer,” she said.
She focused on keeping her voice low and steady.
“Where do you hale from, George?” Whiskey Jack asked.
“Farm outside Maple Grove.”
“Maple Grove, eh? It’s nice in those parts. I’m from Munson, but I spend most of my time up this way. You snore much, George?”
“Only when I sleep,” Evelyn answered.
Whiskey Jack laughed and fell back into his bunk. He sat up again only when the clanging of the triangle signaled dinner time and the loggers rushed to the door and out of the bunkhouse in a stream, like a line of ants heading toward their hill.
* * *
Once inside the cook shanty, with the scent of food rising from the stove and tables, Evelyn realized how hungry she was and took the first available seat that she saw. The men surrounding her nodded at her in greeting, and she nodded back. She quickly glanced around the room. The men were crammed around the tables, elbow to elbow, and the tables could barely be seen, every inch of them covered with bowls, platters, plates, and cups. The sea of loggers was a menagerie of burly look-alikes, all wool and suspenders. Most of the men had short hair accompanied by mustaches or beards, and distinguishing one logger from another was not an easy task. Some of the men obviously knew each other. Others, like Evelyn, sat surrounded by strangers.
Despite the no talking during meals rule, the sound was deafening—an endless drone. As emptied bowls and platters were replaced with full ones, the shanty was an avalanche of noise, with flatware clanking and cups clapping down on tables. Even with three children and George, Evelyn’s home in Maple Grove had always been moderately quiet. But with this assembly of men, she didn’t think silence ever took root. The smell of the food made Evelyn’s stomach growl, and like the others, she began to fill her plate—baked beans, biscuits, salt pork, dried apples and prunes, and pies. She appreciated the simplicity of the food—solid, stick-to-your-ribs winter fare.
As Evelyn gobbled down her food, she surveyed the room, and when her eyes settled on the flunky who was rushing from table to table with food and a pot of coffee, she felt a sense of relief settle in her—another woman. A rather nondescript girl was also working the tables. She looked extremely young, perhaps in her early teens. She was tiny and pale, with a mop of strawberry-blond curls. The older woman was extremely attractive and seemed dreadfully out of place in that rigorous world of men. Her dark auburn hair was kept in a tightly wrapped bun on the back of her head, and her fair skin made her look almost fragile. She had a slender build, and though she wore a long, heavy dress and an apron, Evelyn could tell she was well-endowed.
Evelyn watched the woman. She seemed to float around the cook shanty like a ghost, trying to go unseen as she skirted her way around the men. She spoke only rarely to the cook, his helper, and the other flunky, and she almost always avoided eye contact. Evelyn wondered what her story was, how she had ended up at the camp. Every aspect of her seemed to stick out amidst the mass of men, but her very presence at the camp somehow gave Evelyn comfort. Even though she was disguised as a man, the presence of two other females made her feel less alone, not so outnumbered.
Evelyn held up her cup just as she had seen the others do to signal for more coffee, and the older woman quickly strode over with a pot. Evelyn found herself taking in the woman’s hands as she poured the steaming coffee. They were delicate, unblemished, with long fingers. She’s not accustomed to hard labor, Evelyn thought. Her own hands were more manly—wide, with thick fingers, and calluses here and there from the drudgeries of farm work. As the woman went to fill another jack’s cup, Evelyn watched her move across the room. She was at least a foot shorter than Evelyn, and Evelyn wondered if the flunky feared for her safety, engulfed by so many men. She knew more than one of these men would take advantage of the woman if they had the opportunity. Though she didn’t know her, Evelyn admired her tenacity, whatever her circumstances—being willing to be surrounded by so many gregarious men. She didn’t seem to be the woman for the part. She carried herself with a certain refinement, and Evelyn couldn’t help but wonder if this was her first time at the camp, also. Realizing that her eyes were lingering on the woman longer than was appropriate, she quickly dropped them to her plate.
* * *
Evelyn’s first night in the bunkhouse was worse than any nightmare she ever could have imagined. The noise was boisterous, nonstop, and the tension was thick, with the men tightly wedged into the too-small space. Evelyn sat on the edge of her bunk and listened to the
barrage of sound around her. The men seemed to have a penchant for badgering each other. The bantering was constant, oftentimes good-natured, but she knew it would take only one wrong look or word for it to escalate beyond that into a brawl. Whiskey Jack pointed out some of the jacks to Evelyn.
“The biggest fellow in the house is that jack over there,” he said.
Evelyn easily spotted the man. He was, indeed, a humongous man, about three jacks in one.
“He’s been coming up here for two years now,” Whiskey Jack said. “We’re still waiting for the day when a bigger jack shows up, but it hasn’t happened yet. He’s like our own Paul Bunyan. He’s not the quickest man, but he can practically move a mountain if you need him to. We call him Windy because he blows more farts than the rest of us put together. The nights that we have bean hole beans are especially fragrant.”
Evelyn felt doomed.
“Good to know,” she said.
Whiskey Jack identified a jack named Poker Pete as one of the biggest troublemakers in the camp. He had a head of bushy brown hair and a shortly cropped beard. His most distinct feature was a rather large, very crooked nose, which Evelyn assumed might have been broken more than once in a fistfight or brawl. As Whiskey Jack continued to point out men, Poker Pete yelled out to the man Whiskey Jack had said was their finest fiddler.
“Hey, Tommy, who’s your wife going to be warming up to this winter?”
“That’s nothing I need to worry about,” Tommy answered good-naturedly, not about to let Poker Pete ruffle his feathers. “We’ve already got so many kids that she won’t even let me sidle up to her anymore.”
The jacks sitting with Poker Pete laughed. Whiskey Jack had told Evelyn that Tommy Tune boasted eight children. Evelyn pitied the woman who was home alone in the winter with that many children. She glanced about at the other men. Some of them hunkered down near the grinding stone to sharpen axes, repair equipment, or mend socks and mittens. Others tossed conversations back and forth, and she began to attach names to faces. Tommy Tune and Big Mike moved to a corner and began playing their fiddles. The dry, whining tones filled the room as a few of the jacks sang along in gruff voices. Other men played cards; the shuffling of the decks sounded like flags flapping in the wind. Two men hovered over a crude checkerboard that they had set up on a small section of the deacon’s seat. Gabbie, staying true to his name, held command in a far corner of the room as he told the story of a river walker named Billy Jonas.
“Billy Jonas was one of the best known rivermen in all the Northwoods, the cowboy of the mighty Wisconsin River. One season after Billy finished a long run down river, he went to Milwaukee and bought a secondhand suit. He boarded the train, but he drank and gambled away all his money, so they threw him off the train in Portage. From there he started to walk to his original destination, Black Rapids, but it began to rain and his suit started to shrink. By the time he reached Ashland, his pants were nearly up to his knees, and his jacket sleeves were up to his elbows. The rain continued to fall, and Billy kept on walking. By the time he was within miles of Black Rapids, the suit had shrunk so much that he couldn’t wear it anymore, and by the time he entered town, he was completely naked. The sheriff had no choice but to throw him in jail. And that was the last time Billy Jonas ever took a train.”
The men sitting around Gabbie chuckled and slapped their knees in good humor, and as Gabbie began to tell another story, Evelyn turned her attention to a man who sat in another corner of the bunkhouse, whittling. Whiskey Jack had told her his name was Walking Willy, and that his reputation preceded him. Willy was shorter and leaner than most of the other men, but his stature served him well, as he was known to be an incredibly agile man, revered as one of the best river walkers in the entire territory. Evelyn’s eyes traveled from jack to jack, as she wondered which ones she should be leery of. It was known that some of the jacks were running from the law, and a few others were fleeing from their families for one reason or another. Every logger had a story. Evelyn planned to keep her distance from most of them as much as possible.
With the noise rising around her, Evelyn’s head began to pound. She knew the nights would be the hardest on her, with the cramped quarters immersing her in misery. She wondered if a group of women in those conditions would be as unruly as these men were. She somehow doubted it. I’m sure it wouldn’t be pleasant, she thought, but I don’t think it would be like this. She rummaged through her pack and pulled out the pipe, the pouch of tobacco, and a box of wooden matches. She pushed some tobacco into the pipe and pulled on her coat and hat.
“You heading out, George?” Whiskey Jack asked. “Sounds like the wind’s whipping up a bit out there.”
“Just going to take a few puffs off my pipe,” Evelyn said. “It’s going to take me a while to get used to these close quarters after being on the prairie.”
“Understandable,” said Whiskey Jack.
Evelyn weaved around the men until she reached the door. As soon as she stepped outside and away from the bunkhouse, she felt relief. The only sounds were the wind, the creaking trees, and a few screeches from the night creatures. Occasionally, the faint sound of laughter arose from the shed where the teamsters tended to the horses. Evelyn rested against a tree, took a deep breath, and for the first time that day, felt her body relax a bit. She lit the pipe and watched the smoke curl up toward the sky. She thought about her children, and she wanted nothing more than to escape right then and there and return home.
* * *
When Evelyn returned to the bunkhouse, she went to the bunk, put her pipe back in her pack, and took out the calendar and pencil that Helen had given her. In the dim light of the potbellied stove, she marked off her first day at the camp. Turning the pages that followed, she felt an overwhelming sense of gloom. She removed her boots, lay down, and pulled her blanket over her.
By the time nine o’clock finally arrived and the kerosene lamps were extinguished, a layer of thick tobacco smoke hung over the bunkhouse in a low-floating cloud, and the sour smell of sweat and damp wool seemed to seep into Evelyn’s skin. She felt as if she would suffocate, and she tried to catch her breath, burrowing beneath the cover and curling into herself. Even beneath her cover, the nighttime noise surrounding her was unbearable. Snores from the others rumbled through the bunkhouse like an approaching thunderhead. One man growled in his sleep, and another exhaled in a semi-whistle. On and off throughout the night, one logger or another would spurt out some garbled phrase. Outside, escalating winds seemed to knock on the walls of the bunkhouse. Despite her fatigue, Evelyn prayed for morning to come quickly so she could escape into the outside and the fresh air. Her last thought was of her children, at home, safely snuggled in warm beds. Her sacrifice at the camp was worth it for their comfort. They were all she had, and she was all they had.
* * *
The loud, clanking sound of the flunky hitting the triangle with a metal beater seemed to fill the air as soon as Evelyn closed her eyes. In sync with the others, she rolled off her bunk; pulled on additional socks and her boots; grabbed her coat, hat, and heavy wool mittens; and headed toward the door. Loggers filed out ahead of her and behind. In the cook shanty, they all fell silent, focused on the food. Evelyn found herself glancing up as the older flunky filled the cup of the logger sitting across from her, and for a moment, she caught the woman’s eyes with her own. They were a deep blue, like the spring sky when it has been scoured by a sudden storm. Evelyn watched as the woman strode across the room to serve another jack. She couldn’t take her eyes off her. Realizing that she was paying too much attention to the flunky, she admonished herself. Stop staring at the woman! What’s wrong with you? She felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment, but she had to admit that she was curious about this woman who seemed more fitting for a parlor than a logging camp. Evelyn had never really noticed women before. Her closest confidante was Helen, and she considered Jess to be more like a second sister. Beyond that the other women in her life were merely acquaintances that she saw
only infrequently. They, like her, lived lives with little time to spare. Now, immersed in this world of men, she couldn’t help but notice this woman.
Realizing that some of the loggers were already getting up from the table and heading outside to return to the bunkhouse and gather their tools, Evelyn took one last bite of food and one last gulp of coffee and followed suit. The air was crisp, cold, just below freezing, but the snow on the ground had not yet accumulated enough to be a deterrent or hardship. Evelyn knew that would not be the case for long. She hurried into the bunkhouse to get her ax, rested it on her shoulder, and followed the others into the woods. Whiskey Jack caught up with her and they walked in unison.
“You a sawyer, George?” Whiskey Jack asked.
“Sure am,” Evelyn said.
“Good enough. I haven’t teamed up with anyone yet. You can be my chopping mate and my bunkmate.”
“Fine with me,” Evelyn said.
“We’ll be heading about a mile in,” Whiskey Jack said.
“You been here long?” Evelyn asked.
“Got in four days ago. You a family man, George?”
Evelyn gathered her thoughts before she spoke.
“I’ve got three children—two boys and one girl. My wife passed away a few months back.”
They fell silent for a moment, and Whiskey Jack finally cleared his throat.
“That’s a hard row to hoe.”
“Yeah,” Evelyn said. “That and a bad year of farming’s what brings me here. I’m just trying to make ends meet.”
“Sorry for your loss, George,” Whiskey Jack said.
Evelyn nodded and they continued to trudge beneath the cathedral of trees—poplars, paper birches, elms, maples, oaks, balsams, jack and Norway pines. They pushed deeper into the woods, the mottled grays, browns, and blacks of the different barks melding into a mirage. The cutting wind was so icy that sharp pains smacked Evelyn between the eyes, just above the bridge of her nose. She winced.