Legacy (18 page)

'I don't want to talk about that,' I said. 'I'm just glad that we don't have to get bogged down in that business with Brad Graybar and that man who was killed.'

Father grinned at his cigar. 'Well, I agree with you. We don't have to get involved. In fact, I learned that myself from Judge Hawthorne yesterday. Brad's in enough hot water as it is, without us saying a word.'

'I don't understand.'

'Seems this Shaw wrote it all down last week what this Brad did to him, and he left it with his wife, Alice. Fortunately, he didn't mention what Brad had caught him doing or who he thought was going to pay him for spiking Brad's mill. Guess he had sense enough not to incriminate himself. This Alice brought in the note paper to the judge just yesterday. Brad's going to have just one hell of a time when it gets into the papers . . . one hell of a time.'

I saw the grin on his face, and I knew what must have happened last night. He had come back from the judge knowing Brad was going to be in trouble. He had got out the books to see how much money there was to pick up what Brad would be forced to sell. And then he had seen that there was no way he could cash in on Brad's misfortune. He would have to buckle down now to make sure the same thing didn't happen to him later. All he could do was watch while Brad scrambled to salvage what he could of his credit ratings and his property.

So much for the 'temporary' part of Father's overnight conversion! He had just finally become aware of the truth: it was better to let Brad hang himself than to get tangled up trying to hurry the process.

'You know what?' Father said. 'They've even started trying to make a deal, looks like. That Brad sent his boy Steven around to see me today. Of course I wasn't in, but he left a card and said he'd stop back tomorrow, just as respectful as you please. Wanted to talk about some important business, he said.'

I forced myself to stay calm. So Steven had tried, after all! It wasn't enough for him to cut me off from Justin McKay; he wanted to cut me off from my own father, as well! It was hard for me to keep my voice casual and light, but I managed to do it.

'Do you think you'll see him?'

'Doubt it. I want to get an early start tomorrow. Besides, I've got a natural hate for snakes.'

He paused and looked at me meaningfully, the heavy lids of his eyes raised higher. 'And I hope you have, too.'

An idea came to me suddenly. If I went with Father, there was a chance that I could prepare him for whatever Steven might say. Perhaps I could find the right moment to explain. I could say that I had made a mistake. 'Father, let me change the subject,' I said. 'I can prove I don't want to stay here and see Steven Graybar. Just tell me first, who is managing the new resort at Eagles Mere?'

'I don't follow you,' he said, but he told me, anyway. A man from Harrisburg named Gilbert, with twenty years' experience.

'All right,' I said. 'Then here is my proposition. I want to go with you on your trip.'

For a moment or two he was surprised. Lumber camps were no place for a lady, he said, and what did that have to do with the new Eagles Mere hotel? But I explained. He had sick men in the lumber camps, sick and injured men that I could help cheer up, just the way I'd done for Justin McKay's men the past week. And when we got to Eagles Mere, I could inspect the new hotel from a woman's point of view. The guests weren't going to stay long if the wives didn't like the place, and I could notice things that Father and this Mr. Gilbert might miss.

It took a good deal more convincing than that, but in the end I won out. I could go along. It was a good idea, he said, and he was glad I was taking an interest in the family investments. As if I had not tried to help him earlier!

But I was going. I had my chance.

That night we had a farewell dinner. Mrs. Jennings, our cook, outdid herself with trout done in lightly seasoned butter, a chilled cucumber soup, squab, and Father's favorite, baked Alaska, piled high with the crisp meringue topping. The three of us sat at one end of the long oval table, far from the wide silver centerpiece floral stand with its thick sprays of blue irises and lilacs, punctuated by the round white rhododendron blossoms. The only note of sadness was that Mother did not feel well enough to travel with us tomorrow.

Later, as I packed my valise for an early start, I thought of the things I had heard about lumber camps. Wild places, and in wild country, where a man might die as easily from an accident out in the forest as from one of the all-too-frequent fights back in the camp. The work was hard and dangerous, and it bred that kind of man - from the 'choppers', whose axes brought the trees crashing to the ground, to the 'sawyers', to the 'haulers', who cut the trees into logs and brought them down to the river. In winter they lived in one suit of woolen underwear and wool pants and shirt, never changing or washing. Even after a fall into the icy river, they simply dried off and kept going, certain that this was the best way to stay strong and ward off any fever. In summer, though, there was more time for devilment. That was when Father worried about strikes and 'sawdust wars' between the men of the different camps. In winter they were too busy fighting the cold and the river to fight each other very much. In the summertime, there were more fights over women, the prostitutes who set themselves up in tents or in a cabin near the camp. One of the men in McKay's clinic had been recovering from one of those fights with deep wounds in his chest and shoulder from another man's hunting knife.

As I climbed between the smooth sheets of my soft, four-poster canopied bed, I wondered what the next few days would bring. Would I really have time alone with Father? And how could I find the right way to explain to him about Steven? I knew that in the eyes of many I was wrong not to be married to Steven now, but it was my life, not theirs. Steven had been arrogant, demanding, as if his past with me gave him the right to claim me forever. I felt sad then that my love for Steven had changed so much since I had returned to Grampian.

But that could not be helped. I thought again of the camps and the new hotel. I was bound to help Father make a better impression on his men just by being along. And I felt certain I had seen enough hotels here and in Europe to judge whether Eagles Mere was ready for lively guests and a profitable season.

Outside I could hear the soft, haunting song of the caged nightingale in our garden calling out for his mate. I tried to shut out the song from my mind, quieting the emotions and desires that struggled to break free.

Where was Steven tonight? I vowed that I did not care.

PART TWO

Eagles Mere

Chapter Eight

Along the edge of the narrow dirt road, we stood under the tall pines and hemlocks that reared up high to catch the afternoon sun here on the northern side of the mountain. The forest was cool and shady, thick with pine needles and smelling of damp moss and ferns, moist earth and puffy white toadstools. Not far away we could hear the crack of a sledge driver's whip as he cursed at his horse, urging it to drag the heavy load of pine logs a little faster. To my left stood Father, talking with Vince, the foreman of the camp, a dark, swarthy man with a kindly smile and a squared-off chin.

On my right, still looking slightly uncomfortable, stood Justin McKay. Both of us had been surprised when, very early that morning, we had met on the railroad station platform behind Father's hotel. Father explained that Justin had agreed to check over the medical facilities of both camps and perhaps the new resort, if there was time. While he told Justin why I was going, too, I thought how odd it was that Justin would take a two-or three-day trip so soon after a bullet had nearly killed him. He still wore a bandage over his right temple, yet he was up at six-fifteen to meet the train Father had ordered. There had to be more at stake than just an inspection of medical facilities. Perhaps Father had hinted at something else - a business or political advantage to be gained, or some other return for this favor Justin was doing for him.

But whatever the reason, I was not about to speak with Justin after what he had said yesterday. My pride forbade that, and evidently his did, too, for he made no attempt to talk to me during the entire train ride fifty miles upriver, or when we got off and changed for horses at a small waterfront town after we had first crossed a narrow, swaying footbridge to the north side of the river.

We had ridden far over the mountain and up to the top of the next, where the logging camp had been built some five years before. The rough wood cabins had been gradually expanded to make room for some sixty men. There was now a bunkhouse and a sturdy frame mess hall with an adjoining kitchen shed. We had arrived in time for lunch - huge portions of steaming corn mush, maple syrup, and slabs of ham, which the men at the rough-hewn tables wolfed down in great quantities with pitchers of cold spring water.

This first camp was the one that had recently suffered a series of 'accidents'. I could see the effects of these past weeks on the fearful, suspicious faces of many of the men. At the dining hall, many looked at each other, as if wondering which one was the killer hidden amongst them. We knew there were now fifteen men in the infirmary-bunkhouse Father had had built this spring. Many of them would likely be crippled for life. Would there be more?

After lunch, which the men of course called 'dinner', Justin inspected the infirmary. We all spoke with the injured men. I succeeded in making a few of them smile with my Artemus Ward stories, but the others were in too much pain. Justin promised to come back later that everting and give their injuries a careful examination as soon as we had come back from the woods.

While it was still daylight, Vince wanted us to see the long downhill skid where they had lost two men in one accident and where three more had been crippled at other times. This was the only spot at which there had been more than one mishap, and the men were beginning to balk when they were told to work even near it.

Yet the skid had to be used. In the warm weather there was no ice to make the mountain roads slick enough for a log sledge to be drawn any appreciable distance. That skid saved over a day's hauling time with each load, and to build another would take more than a week, with no assurance that the new one would be any more safe than the old.

Now, on the side of the mountain just at the top of this two-hundred-foot skid, we waited in the shadows of the pines to watch the sledge being sent down. Father and Justin each studied the terrain, looking for clues as to what could possibly have gone wrong with three stout ropes to send three different sledges hurtling out of control down the hillside, where their logs had broken loose under the terrific impact at the bottom and crushed whatever stood in the way.

I looked down the steep incline, the wide path, bare of all trees, that plunged sharply down from the logging road. At the other end of the skid two hundred feet below, the logging road reappeared. From the point where we now stood to where the road looped around, hairpin-like, below us, was a day's drive for a loaded sledge, yet to go down the skid would take less than a quarter-hour. Not far from the bottom of this skid, another had been cut to send the logs down yet another level, to yet another hairpin-loop of road, and so on, level by level, until the last skid that sent the logs pouring down into the Susquehanna River. There raftsmen would gather them up with pikes and cant hooks and float them down to the Susquehanna Boom, just north-west of Grampian, where they would be held until Father's mill called for them. And that would likely be soon. Father had used up nearly all of his stock from the winter logging already as his mill pushed ahead overtime to fill new orders. If they ran out, Father would be forced to buy stock from the other mill owners at high prices, unless he could get enough of his own logs down to the mill in time. That was why it was important to have the extra stock from Justin's camp and to have both camps turning out the logs in good order and on schedule. Every day lost to injury was costing money in delays at the mill and in lost orders from those builders who wanted good board stock shipped out immediately.

At the bottom of this skid where we stood, there was grim evidence of the past. On the left side of the open path, towards the bottom, great trees leaned crazily away from us, battered and cracked at the bases of their trunks, where the heavily loaded sledge had hit them. The earth on the skid was moist, freshly scarred with the marks of horses' hooves and sledge runners. The tracks ran straight here at the top, but down towards the bottom they slashed deep and dark at an angle where one sledge had turned from the trail and veered headlong into a great boulder that lay just at the right edge. A dark stain on the grey face of this huge rock was visible to us from where we stood. Whether it was from the blood of a man or the blood of a horse I did not ask.