Going Where It's Dark (13 page)

When they reached the clearing, Dad poured himself some coffee from the thermos, and they stood leaning against the truck, waiting for Joel. Buck tipped his head back as far as he could to see the tops of the trees. The poplars were the tallest around, maybe a hundred feet, Gramps had said, their branches starting far up the trunk, and they were ready to be cut in twenty-five or thirty years. But the oldest trees here were likely the hard red oaks that grew more slowly, only forty feet in eighty years.

Gramps liked figures like that, and knew dozens more, but these were the only ones Buck remembered.

“Got to cut out the old and let the young ones come along,” he'd said, and Buck wondered if Gramps ever felt like an old red oak himself—he, and then Dad….

Don Anderson must have been thinking the same thing.

“You know,” he said, arms folded over his chest, his feet crossed at the ankles, “you and Joel and Katie could do a lot worse than taking over this business someday.”

Sort of a strange way to put it,
Buck thought.

“When Gramps and I are gone,” Dad continued, “you're either going to have to run it or sell it, and being out in the woods all day with your brother just might be the ticket for you.”

“T…to what?” Buck asked.

“To doing work you like. I tell you…there's something about seeing new trees coming along…cleaning out a woods so the sunlight gets through…you're giving 'em a chance. Same with a garden. I don't like hoeing any more than you do, but I get to the end of a row and see a long line of green coming along behind me, there's even satisfaction in that, the kind you don't get sitting in an office somewhere, shuffling papers.”

And when Buck didn't respond, he added, “Just something to think on, Buck. You'd be working a lot by yourself…nobody else much to deal with….” And then Dad said it again: “Could do a lot worse.”

He could hardly have said it more directly: …
for a stutterer like you.

Buck didn't have anything against logging or running a sawmill. But he wanted to choose a job because he liked it, not because he stuttered.

Buck was the first to hear the far-off grind of the tractor. Dad opened the tailgate and lifted out two chain saws, one at a time. He carried them to the base of the huge red oak just beyond the forklift and laid them down.

“Get the safety goggles, would you, Buck? There under the seat?” he called.

When the tractor pulled up and Joel got out, he called, “How many trees we got, Dad?”

“Buck and I figure around twenty. No more than two loads.”

It wasn't long before a chain saw jerked to life in Don Anderson's big hands and, leaning over, he cut a notch a foot above the base of the first oak tree and angled the saw in. The whine grew louder the deeper it cut, and finally the heavy oak crashed to the ground, branches crackling, followed by a chorus of rustling leaves. Buck felt the thud in the soles of his feet as the earth vibrated, and then the woods were still.

He and Joel and their dad gathered around the fresh stump, a clean cut, and examined the butt ends for signs of rot, but this tree had no insect tunnels, no slivers. Buck began counting the rings as Dad and Joel moved along the trunk with their saws to cut it into logs.

“…seventy-four, seventy-five…It's s…seventy-six years old, Dad,” Buck called.

“A good long life,” Dad said. And then the air was split with the buzzing shriek of first one, then two chain saws—Don Anderson cutting the heavy oak into sections just short enough to be hauled away, and Joel separating the branches from the trunk.

They moved on to the next marked tree, a poplar that seemed to tower above the rest of the woods, and when it began to topple, it seemed to fall in slow motion. Its high leafy branches were cushioned by the trees around it, snagging here and there, but ultimately ripping through the foliage and, once again, the earth shuddered as the poplar hit the ground with a thud.

Gramps had told stories of loggers who made sloppy cuts, or estimated the wrong direction the tree would fall. And as Buck followed along after his dad and older brother, making stacks of firewood from the smaller branches Joel had cut, he was already working up a new adventure for Pukeman. “Pukeman Fells a Tree”—and there he would be in the first square, cutting a notch in a tree with a hatchet. In the next square, Buck would draw him smiling broadly at the deep cut he had made, unaware that the tree was tilting in his direction, and in the third square, he's lying on the ground, Xs for eyes, the tree on top of him, and little birds, from a nest in the fallen branches, flying circles around his head and tweeting.

At noon, they stopped for lunch. Cutting the trees and sawing them into logs was the easy part. Using the tractor skidder to haul the wood through the forest and back to the clearing, then maneuvering the forklift to get the logs onto the truck, thicker ones first, was the hard part.

The three of them sat across from each other on two logs, eating the ham and cheese sandwiches Buck had packed that morning, and half an apple pie, plus the coffee and some lemonade.

Buck liked the weather of early summer. Not so insufferably hot the way it would get in July and August. That was when the Hole would feel the best. Fifty-six degrees all year round, the temperature of most caves.

“Gramps would have liked to c…come,” he said, pausing between bites of his sandwich.

“I know, but somebody's got to keep shop, and the way his back's been acting up, he's got no business hauling a saw around out here,” said Dad. “I think he figured that out for himself. Besides, he wants you guys to get a taste of the business. See how you measure up.”

So it was still on Dad's mind.
Give it a rest,
Buck thought. He had a long time yet to think about that.

Joel, though, rubbed one shoulder and said, “Oh…I don't know….”

“What? Your shoulder's hurting already?” Dad teased. “You getting to be an old man at the grand age of nineteen?”

“Naw. I just…maybe like to do something different, I guess,” Joel said, and turned his face away as though waiting for another breeze to come through the stand of trees and cool it.

“
This
is different from being at the mill all day,” Dad said.

Joel reached for the thermos and slowly poured some coffee into his plastic cup. Then he set it down carefully beside him on the log, pulled at his earlobe and said, “Been thinking of joining the navy….”

Buck stopped chewing and stared at his older brother. Joel, the least talkative member of the family, next to Buck himself, had just said something so extraordinary that Buck could hardly believe it.

“The
navy
!” Dad was staring too, and then he snorted and put down his sandwich. “Where'd you get a cockamamie idea like that?”

“It's a job, like everything else,” Joel said. “Learn a trade. They'd teach me one.”

“You're learning a trade right here! What do you think we've been doing all morning? You're helping out at the mill, earning yourself some money….”

“I don't want to spend my whole life just ‘helping out,' ” Joel said, and turned his face away again.

Dad sat shaking his head. “What makes you think the navy will even take you?”

Joel snapped around again. “What makes you think they won't?”

“Well, I don't know, son. What I mean is…this idea just come to you all of a sudden, or what?”

“I've been thinking on it a good long while,” Joel answered, and bit into his sandwich again, jaws tight as he chewed.

Buck stayed so quiet he thought he could almost hear a beetle working its way up the bark on the log where he and Joel were sitting.

“Have you been talking about this with Mel?” Dad asked finally.

“Mel's got nothing to do with it. I've never mentioned it to anyone except my friends.”

“So…some of them thinking of signing up too? Is this what's got you going? Or has some fast-talking recruiter come through?” There was a touch of anger in Dad's voice, like he needed to blame
somebody
for this idea.

“Jimmy…he's thinking on it. Can't swim, though….”

“Can
you
?” Dad asked.

“
I
swim!” Joel retorted.

Don Anderson leaned forward, resting his big arms on his knees, and stared out toward the road. “Well, Joel, I'm not about to hold you back, you make up your mind on something. But just for your mother's sake, think on it awhile, will you? Don't go signing something you can't reverse.”

They set to work again, a growing silence between them, only the skittering sound as a squirrel chased another around a tree trunk. But at some point in the afternoon, Buck heard his dad say, “Let's do that big poplar next, Joel. Why don't you notch it this time, and I'll just watch. You lay it down, and Buck and I will chop it up.”

Maybe it was the first time Joel had been allowed to fell a tree, Buck thought. It wasn't a clean cut—it splintered some when it fell—but it was a tall, straight tree, and it crashed exactly where it was supposed to fall.

“Good job!” Dad said as he inspected the end of the trunk.

But Buck doubted it would change anything.

E
veryone was ravenously hungry at dinner, and Mel had gotten home early, bringing a couple of cherry pies he'd picked up along the way. Katie, in shorts and a checkered top, hair in a French braid, had made a centerpiece for the table. She had used an assortment of wild flowers, greenery, and twigs she'd found in the field next to their property.

Uncle Mel eyed the bouquet with suspicion.

“Nothing in there about to erupt, is there?” he asked, and that brought a laugh from everyone, remembering the mass of praying mantis eggs that had come in two months before on one of Katie's bouquets; they had hatched right in the middle of dinner.

“Prepare to vacate!” Joel cried, and Buck jokingly grabbed one corner of the tablecloth, the way they had back in April. They had carried it outside where dozens of tiny mantids rapidly scurried off into the grass, and they had to gather up all the silverware and put it back on the table.

“Lucky we hadn't put the plates and food on yet,” Doris Anderson said. “I know they're a friend to man, but they'd got in my pork roast, I'd have smashed them flat.”

Gramps wasn't his usual witty self, however. “Sure makes for a long day when I got to run the shop alone,” he complained, resting one bony arm next to his plate. The frayed denim shirt he wore winter and summer alike was still buttoned at the wrist, and the sleeve opening seemed far too large for his wrinkled hand.

“Well, Joel and I have got to go back and finish that lot tomorrow, Pop. Figure one more day should do it,” Dad said, passing the bowl of creamed peas around the table, “but we could let you have Buck tomorrow.”

It wasn't the first time Buck noticed that his dad passed him around as easily as he'd loan out a ladder to a neighbor. He didn't mind especially, but it would have been nice to be asked first.

Gramps didn't respond one way or the other.

“Would that help?” Dad asked him.

Gramps dipped a bite of bread in his gravy and thrust it in his mouth. Chewed as though either his jaws were painful or the words he was about to say hurt them: “What would help is somebody taking it seriously, the thievin' at the shop.”

“Oh, Dad, you going on about that again?” Don Anderson said, and gave his head a small shake.

Gramps caught it, though, and raised his voice: “All right now, you listen. While you were all at the woods today, I did some figuring.” He took a minute to wipe the big blue napkin across his mouth and laid his fork across his plate. “Three weeks ago, see, I numbered every one of those plywood sheets—small numbers there on the edge. Wouldn't see 'em at all if you weren't looking for 'em. Did the same with my pine planks and my fence posts—every last thing we keep outside under cover, and whenever I sold a piece, I recorded that number.”

Dad gave an astonished chuckle. “Heck, Dad, you'll give yourself a coronary, all that bending over.”

Gramps waved it away. “The thing is, between three weeks ago and today, we've sold seven sheets of plywood, missing three. Sold fourteen planks, missing two. And a couple of fence posts.”

It would be easy to blame the missing pieces on Gramps's arithmetic, Buck was thinking, except that the only thing Gramps was better at than running a log through a sawmill and turning out planks, was numbers. And every single purchase was itemized on the store receipt no matter who did the selling—Dad or Gramps or Joel.

“Hmm,” Dad said. “Can't account for that. But you tell me how somebody's going to get that stuff out of there without opening the front gate.”

“No,
you
tell me how it walks out on its own!” Gramps responded. “We don't find out pretty soon, they'll take the whole darn sawmill.”

Buck and Joel exchanged amused glances.

“I'll say this for Gramps, he's one stubborn dude when it comes to chasing down a penny,” Joel laughed. “Talk about stubborn…”

Gramps was getting annoyed, and Dad said quickly, “Now look who's talking! Remember that argument you had with Mel, about what pitcher holds the record for most no-hitters in the major leagues?”

“And you were so sure it was Bob Feller you bet a whole day's pay at the mill?” Mel said.

“And was it?” asked Buck.

“Heck, no. It was Nolan Ryan,” said Dad.

Katie turned to Mel wide-eyed. “Did you make Joel pay?”

“You betcha! Teach the kid not to gamble!”

Joel looked sheepish and gave Mel a pretend punch as the family hooted. All but Gramps, who silently continued eating.

“Okay, Pop, let's talk about it,” Dad said. “Do you want to install some security cameras?”

“Never needed cameras before!” Gramps declared. “Been here sixty-two years, and my dad before me. Once we locked that gate at night, you could count on nobody even entertaining the thought of breaking in.”

“Except nobody had to,” Mom said, lifting her water glass. “All they have to do is climb over.” She took a few sips and set it down again.

“You're telling me somebody hoisted all that over the top?” Dad asked.

“Why not?” said Mom. “Especially if there was more than one in on it.”

But Buck had another idea. “There's a g…gap between the gate and the m…metal fence post,” he said. “Someone c…could climb over the f…fence, then slide stuff through the g…gap. Especially the lumber and p…plywood sheets. I don't know about the fence posts.”

“He's got a point,” said Dad. “Not hard at all.”

Gramps shook his head. “Can't get my mind around the thought of someone wanting to do me that way.”

“Well, I can't either, Dad, but you say you don't want a security camera.”

“How about putting barbed wire along the top of the fence?” said Mel.

Gramps straightened. “And make Anderson's Lumber look like a prison?” he declared. “All that says to customers is we don't trust 'em.”

“But we don't!” Katie said innocently, and Gramps frowned at her. “Just saying…,” she murmured, sitting back in her chair.

“What do you want, Dad? You want a couple of us to stay overnight down there? Watch who comes by?” Joel asked.

“I'll d…do it,” Buck offered. “Me and Joel.”

Gramps ignored them both. “What I want is to find out who's doing some renovating around here…adding on a sunporch or carport, and is likely using my lumber.”

Mom looked thoughtful. “Pearl mentioned the Iversons adding a room for her mother-in-law.”

“Murphys are building a shed,” said Joel, “but I can't imagine one of them stealing. What
about
Buck and me holing up in the shop Saturday night?”

“Yeah. I'll d…do it,” said Buck. If he and Joel and Katie were going to own the sawmill some day, might as well take some responsibility.

“Could be any night at all,” said Dad. “Could be
anybody
at all. Somebody with a truck. All he'd have to do is drive up around two in the morning—no traffic on the road—no one to see him coming in or out. Park it there in the trees, climb the fence, haul the stuff over the top or slide it through the gap. Then load it in the truck and take off. A few at a time. He's got away with it so far.”

“So who do we know with a truck?” asked Katie.

“Just about everyone in the county!” said Gramps.

“Okay,” Dad said. “Buck and Joel can sit watch at the sawmill on Saturday night. We'll see what happens.”

Out in the kitchen, Katie and Buck filled the dishwasher.

“Whoever thought owning a sawmill had so many problems,” Katie said.

“You wouldn't want it?” Buck asked.

“Never!”

“Really? What about the house?”

“
This
house?”

“Yeah. M…might be yours s…someday, you know.”

Katie paused, a saucer in her hands, and looked around. “Oh, wow, if I owned
this
house, I'd take out the wall between the kitchen and dining room, and have one big space, and I'd put a skylight in the front hallway and extend the porch all the way around both sides….”

Buck laughed. “S…sorry I asked.”

Katie slid the saucer onto the stack in the cupboard. “Why would it be just
my
house? Why wouldn't it belong to all three of us?”

“It w…would, I suppose. Any of us who stayed.”

“Maybe we'd decide to sell it and all of us just go and do what we wanted.”

“Well, that too,” said Buck. “It's a l…l…long way off.”