Jeff was hammering the mark onto the ends and sides of the stacked logs while Jake measured and scaled them for market using his caliper. Once he had a reading for a log he would mark it on his tally board. On a good day the two of them could measure and mark at least forty of these logs and load them on sledges where they would be toted by horse to the banks of the Raquette River. Once there, they sat until spring thaw. Jeff didn’t like the spring thaw. While some men reveled in it, he was more cautious. Maybe it was because he was a father now and had mouths to feed and a wife he loved.
When spring thaw came he was assigned the kedging process — that was less risky than being a river driver. At least with kedging he felt he had more control. Getting the logs into the sluiceways with a boom was the easy part. But once the logs started heading downstream all hell could break loose when the river currents took over. Some of the young men, and he had to admit he was once one of them, loved the thrill of tracking the logs and breaking up any jams.
He remembered those days; it was the life of a vagabond, following the logs downstream until they reached their destiny at a mill. It was how he met Jake, and in turn Sarah.
Jake had been a cook at his moveable camp that followed the logs downriver. Jeff smiled at Jake thinking about it. The boy had come a long way. It didn’t take long before people realized Jake could read and write and the lumber camp needed him for more than cooking. He was an expert at measuring and scaling now. And he was young and had energy and skill like none of the others. In the summer months Jake could peel more hemlock bark with his spud in a day with dexterity and skill than any of them. Jeff could only imagine he learned it from Isaac and all the work they did over the years building canoes and packs.
Jeff had nothing but admiration for the Lawrence family. Was glad he married Sarah. It was love at first sight as far as he was concerned. It was two years ago, after a few of their men had died that day on the river, drowned. Jeff had witnessed it and was shaken up by the whole experience. The foreman suggested he and the rest of the crew take a day to recover from the shock. So Jake brought him to the Lawrence household for the night.
After a fine meal of potatoes, corn, fried onions and fish, they gathered around the fire with the others in the Lawrence family, including Sarah, and the old grandmother whom they all called Mémé. Isaac said to Jeff, “Tell me what happens when men drown in a river run.”
Jeff was taken aback that Isaac had lived in the woods all these years and had never witnessed a river run before, but then Isaac was mostly a trapper. What business did he have watching the log drives that were destroying the woods he depended on?
Jeff sighed and looked into the fire. “It started off clean enough but there was still some ice on the river. The logs got jammed up in it. And the water was moving fast, all that snow melt, ya know?”
The family looked solemnly at Jeff and nodded to show they understood what he meant. It had been an unusually warm spring and the heavy accumulation of snow on the peaks was melting fast. The cold, crisp water came rushing down the mountaintops, sloughing off the debris, rocks, and stones in a mad rush to reach the nearest river.
Jeff looked at his rapt audience and continued the sad story. “My crew was working their way to the jam but these young lumberjacks, it was their first time out and they just had to prove themselves; they rowed on ahead of us. We tried to get them to slow down and wait for us. But they wouldn’t listen. There’s nothing like the thrill of a river jam; it’s hard to explain but the blood starts pumping through you as if it is gonna explode ya know, and you just have this feeling in your gut like no other in the world. There in front of you are these massive logs, the roar of the water and you and your pike and peavey ready to conquer it all. By the time we reached them in our boat they were in the thick of it. They was enjoyin’ it too. Hoopin’ and hollerin’ as if it was all a game to them. We worked one end of the jam while they tried to dislodge the logs that had gotten clogged up with the chunk of ice. One of them was trying to push the ice out of the way while John was using his pike on the logs to get ‘em back out into the current.”
Jeff let out a long sigh and shivered. Sarah got up from her seat and placed a fur wrap around him. He looked on her kindly and started again.
“And that’s when it happened. John wasn’t payin’ attention and once the ice was let loose all of the logs that had jammed up by it went flyin’ downriver, including the one John was pikin’ at. He fell overboard and the men in the boat tried their damndest to retrieve him but a log hit him in the head and he went under. And then all hell broke loose cause their boat upended from all their exertions and the men in the boat went under as well.”
Mémé came up to Jeff from out of nowhere and gave him some tea in a tin cup. Jeff took it and thanked her. The group was quiet. Isaac never took his eyes off Jeff, but never spoke either. The long silence left Jeff with an eerie feeling, but the Lawrence family seemed to take it in stride. They knew if a person had a story to tell, it would eventually all come out. Jeff went on.
“We tried to reach them. We was rowin’ and rowin’ but the current was hard, fast. By the time we got to their boat they was gone under. Those logs were plowing right over them. A hit from one of them logs is all it takes to drown a man.”
Jeff stayed the night with Jake’s family and found comfort in the smells of body odor mixed with balsam. He was warm and snug under covers of fur, and for the first time since he could remember he slept like a baby. In the morning Sarah came to him while he was packing up and handed him a pouch filled with food and a trinket. It was a necklace made from leather with a small wood carving of a turtle. “The turtle can swim,” she said to Jeff. “Can you swim?”
Jeff was surprised by her question. Of course he could swim, what boy brought up in these woods couldn’t swim? “Yes,” he said.
“Then you won’t drown. And even if you fall in the river, you can do as the turtle does, and rest on top of the log.” Sarah smiled as she put the leather necklace over his head.
Jeff blushed and held the small turtle carving in his hand. “Thank you.” No girl had ever given him a gift before. And that sealed the deal for him. They were married within a year, a small celebration in the longhouse with her family.
Jeff’s reminiscing was interrupted when the foreman showed up. “Jake, your brother Ike is here,” he said.
Jake looked quizzically at Jeff, both men knew Ike should be trapping with Isaac. Jeff’s hands were frozen stiff from the work and he flexed his fingers to bring the blood back to them. Then he cupped his hands and lifted them to his mouth to breathe warm air into his palms. It hurt when the blood finally started to come back. He stamped his feet, realizing they had gone numb as well. “I’ll go talk to him. You finish marking,” Jeff said.
He approached the logger’s shanty with dread. He knew the only thing that would drag Ike away from his traps was a family emergency of some sort, and he prayed and hoped it wasn’t Sarah or one of the children.
When he got inside though he knew it wasn’t Sarah that brought Ike to the logger’s camp. It was Louise. Ike was holding one of her shawls, it was covered in blood and he was crying.
Sarah’s toddler was screaming. Louise was frazzled. She had hardly any sleep the night before. Sarah’s baby, Nate, had a fever and the two of them were up all night trying to console him. Every hour they soaked a piece of linen with cold water and cooled his small body with it. Louise finally nodded off at the break of dawn only to be woken within the hour by Sarah’s toddler who was hungry for her porridge. And the sliver of water left over from last night was frozen solid in the bucket.
“Shhhh,” she tried to calm the girl. “Your mother and baby brother are sleeping.” Where was Mémé? She needed her. No wonder she liked to stay in the other house, it was the only place to get sleep. As if on cue the old woman walked through the door.
“Fetch some water from the creek,” she said to Louise.
Louise was glad for the reprieve. She pulled on her shawl, grabbed another bucket and headed for the door.
“Your gun,” Mémé said. She picked up the screaming toddler and glanced at the rifle hanging above the door.
Louise took her gun down from the mount and made for the creek in the woods.
It was quiet. The falling snow muffled any sounds. It was a few minutes before she could hear the gurgling creek. Her thoughts turned to William, wondering when she would see him again. It had been three months since he had promised to come back. Now she wondered if he would. Her father suggested she find employment next spring at one of the hotels with Emaline. But she stubbornly refused to believe the Durants wouldn’t want her back. She and Ike had been very faithful to the family. It wasn’t fair that her love for William would make her an outcast. What kind of family was it that didn’t appreciate love?
She finally reached the creek and knelt down to collect water. The sound of the creek was soothing. After her bucket was full she sat down on her shawl for a moment to enjoy the sound before heading back to the din at the cabin.
She was looking across the creek when she saw them: cat tracks in the snow. And blood. There was a kill here recently. Louise imagined that an unsuspecting deer was drinking from the creek when a wild cat came upon it and dragged it into the forest. They prowled these woods but were rarely seen. Louise shuddered and picked up the bucket to head back. She must tell Ike to set a trap for the beast.
As she was reaching for her shawl she heard a low growl. Startled, she looked up to find a cougar slinking along the other side of the creek. He had been stalking her. He bared his teeth and stopped once he was directly across from her. His large eyes turned to slits as they locked on hers.
What a fool she was for lingering. Every predator knows a creek is where to find unsuspecting prey.
Slowly, Louise reached for the rifle slung across her back and brought it in front of her.
The cat crouched low to the ground, ears pinned back on its head, ready to pounce.
Her heart was racing. She had moments to shoot before he lunged at her. The distance between them was less than a rod. He could easily reach her in one leap.
She aimed above his head figuring when he did spring it would hit him in the chest. A flicker of a thought passed through her mind that Ike would miss her singing.
The last thing she heard was the click of the trigger of her gun. It was this exact moment she realized in her haste to retreat from the cabin she had forgotten to load it.