The Deadly River (14 page)

Benton chuckled, “Okay. But I was hoping that our little town had grown on you and you’d decided to stay here.” He spoke with a New England accent, one that Lee hadn’t heard since leaving Villanova.

Lee grinned. “I do like it here, but I’m not really sure what I want to do when I grow up. Not yet, sir.”

“Well, Lee. To tell you the truth, I’ve got almost more mill people than I need right now. But there is something that just came up for us. Can you swim?”

Puzzled, Lee answered, “Yeah, no problem there.”

“Well, Lee, there is a project. It wouldn’t pay much, but it would keep you busy. I’m sure you’ve heard about Kurt Kochran and the shooting the other day, haven’t you?”

A light came on for Lee. This was going to be interesting. “Yes. I know about it. In fact, I helped Kurt and Ben set up the raft they were using.”

“How would you like to finish the job that Kurt was doing? By the time that gets done, my college summer hires will be gone and I could employ you here until the winter shutdown. Would that interest you?”

“Yes, definitely. But that’s a two-man job.”

“Actually, we are thinking about making it a three-man job. Two people would operate the raft and do the sampling work, while another would follow them from the river bank and stand guard so no one else gets ambushed. The only problem is that there isn’t a lot of money left in the grant, so we will have to be really stingy to make it stretch over three bodies, even if I pick up some of the cost.”

“Mr. Benton, I can help with that. I’m not hurting for money. I just don’t want to be bored for the next few months. I’ll take this job on for free as long as I’m doing the river work. We can talk about wages when I come to work in the mill later. But I do have a condition.”

“My gosh, Lee. That would be great. What’s the condition?”

“Let me have Mike Morse and his sidekick, Tony Mancini, for the other two bodies. I can trust them and I know they’ll be real hard workers on this.”

Charlie Benton stuck out his hand. “Deal, Lee! I’ll have to make some calls and get the other members of the Community Council onboard, but this is a no-brainer. Consider yourself hired. I’ll tell Mike and Tony to report to you tomorrow.” Suddenly, as a thought hit him, he hesitated, thinking hard. “But there is one problem with this. You won’t be around here enough to play baseball with the Town Team. I guess you could play in the pick-up games whenever you can get here for them, but I’ve got a feeling you’re going to be too busy for much of the baseball stuff. Does that change your mind?”

Lee grabbed the proffered hand. “Not at all, sir. I knew Kurt Kochran fairly well and I’d consider it an honor to finish what he started. Baseball can wait.”

Charlie smiled and nodded. “Okay then.”

Lee was elated. This was too good to be true, he thought. “I’ll get it done for you, sir. I guess I should go out and see the ranger today. We’re going to need that spare raft of Kurt’s. And some maps and sample bottles, also. We can have the raft ready to go by tomorrow evening and be ready to hit the water. Do you have any special instructions for us?”

That caused Benton to think for a moment. “Not anything major. I’d like you to meet with the sheriff before you go out. He mentioned
that he wants you to stay away from certain places for a while. You need to talk to him about the specifics. You should probably meet with the University people also. They’ll have some instructions for you on the sampling process. Ranger Mainwaring, can put you in touch with the right people there.”

He stopped for a moment, thinking. Then he continued, “I think I’m going to ask you to provide me with a handwritten weekly report on your progress. If I think of anything else, I’ll let Mike know tonight when I tell him about this. Now, before I go, do you have any questions for me?”

There had been a thought in the back of Lee’s mind since this conversation had begun. He decided to ask it, even though it might not be the most politically correct thing he’d ever done. “Yes sir, I do have a question and I’m sorry if it isn’t a good one, but my curiosity is up. You own this sawmill, but you’re working with Kurt Kochran, a guy who is known to be an environmental politician. When I talk to people around here who work in the lumber business, they all seem to hate any mention of the environment. My question is this. Why are you doing this?” His voice was a little shaky as he asked.

But he soon found that he had no cause for concern. The mill owner actually laughed aloud at the question. “Mr. Raines, you’re an interesting young man. Most adults around here have the same thoughts, but very few have the balls to ask me the question.” He paused as he gathered his thoughts. Then he continued, his gaze fixed on the distant mountains as he talked. “That river is a disgrace. We white men have only been in this area for about a hundred years, but we have totally ruined that river. It may take another hundred years to clean it up, if we start now. Even most of my workers understand that fact and support cleaning the river. But you just can’t tie the river cleanup together with the timber industry and its problems, because they do hate that.”

Bolder now, Lee pressed on. “Why?”

“Well, they support the river cleanup because the need is obvious and the potential cleanup of the river doesn’t cost them much of anything. You have to remember that they all love this place. That’s why we live here.”

“What they don’t like is the politicians who seem unwilling to compromise on anything. You have the Democrats, mostly from the east coast, who want to preserve every tree and wild animal as if the forests haven’t changed since time began. Then there are the Republicans, who refuse to raise the money to pay for anything, including the Forest Service. Between them, they’ve created a situation where we’re supposed to preserve everything in sight, but there’s no money available to do the work. If it continues this way, I predict that there will be pitched battles all over the western states. You can’t accomplish the things that one side demands with the money the other side is willing to spend. It’s just impossible”

He paused, then continued. “There’s thousands of hard-working Americans who depend on these mills for a living. But they’re watching this fight back in Washington, D.C., and they feel helpless to control their own destiny. It seems like there’s nothing they can do or say that helps. So they’re really worried that they may lose their jobs and homes if the two parties continue down this path.”

He continued, “The bad part is that the people only really see one side of this battle. They can easily hear the noise from the side that wants to preserve the forests and rivers. But, it’s a lot harder to see the problems the Republicans are causing by cutting the forest service budget. The people mostly think that the Democrats and the environmental movement are the bad guys in this. It’s really hard for them to understand that cutting the Forest Service budget makes the problem far worse than it should be.”

He paused, then continued. “To me, it’s obvious that we’re shooting ourselves in the foot by clear-cutting the hillsides. But there isn’t enough money in their budget for the Forest Service to properly manage reasonable timber sales. So we clear-cut the forests and provide the environmental folks with more ammunition for their cause.”

Benton looked at the mill pond for a long moment, shaking his head sadly. “The people who work in the mills are seeing the results of this battle; a battle between two totally uninformed political parties three thousand miles away. My people are afraid for their livelihoods.”

“Are they right, sir?”

“I sincerely hope not, Lee. There’s plenty of room for both sawmills and a clean environment. But it’ll take some compromising from both sides, and that’s starting to look impossible. The Forest Service’s budget is being cut to the bone and, at the same time, the big sawmills are asking for more and more timber. Major clear-cut authorizations are the only way the Forest Service can satisfy the big sawmills. If the two political parties would just try to meet in the middle, things could work out fine. But right now both of them are acting like spoiled brats, throwing tantrums that hurt all of us.”

He stopped, waiting for Lee to comment, but the boy from Pennsylvania was silently absorbing this information. So Benton continued, “I do worry about where it’s all going. If some cooler heads don’t get involved, it could be a disaster. This mill could close. Personally, I’d be fine, because I’ve taken care of myself and my family. But the average person who works here will be badly hurt. If the mills close, there won’t be any meaningful work in these mountains. I don’t know what would happen to my people. They don’t deserve a fate like that. So, Mr. Raines, that’s why I try to work with people like Kurt Kochran. If there’s ever going to be a compromise on these things, it’ll have to start with people like us. Cleaning up our bad river is a good starting place. Now, does that answer your question?”

“Absolutely, sir. I sure hope you win the battle. Thank you very much for explaining it.”

“No problem. Good luck on the river. Come and see me when you’re done.”

Lee couldn’t contain his smile. “Will do, sir. Thank you. We won’t let you down.”

“No, Mr. Raines. I really don’t think that you will.” With that, Charlie Benton smiled and turned to continue his rounds. “See you soon, Lee.” He was gone.

Lee stayed on the little pier, watching the man with the long pole as he worked the logs in the mill pond. The man was wearing heavy boots with some sort of spiked soles that grabbed onto the logs as the man walked over them. He was striding as easily over the floating logs as Lee would have walked a Pennsylvania sidewalk. It was an amazing
sight to see, with the man moving confidently from log to log while deftly steering other logs through the pond. He would carefully select a target log, then use the long pole-hook to bring it through the maze to a spot close to the mill where a chain hoist would grab the log and carry it up through an opening into the darkness of the sawmill. Lee watched this scene play out several times, with the man never hesitating or seeming to even slip a little bit as he went about his job. Finally, Lee shook his head and turned to make his way out of the sawmill complex. He had to admit, he was impressed. There had been pride and confidence in the man’s performance.
Somehow there’s almost an artistry to being able to do that job. I wonder if there are other jobs like that in this line of work?

Then a thought struck him.
I wonder what that man would do if the sawmills really do have to close?

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Lee left the sawmill. He decided to spend the rest of the day getting ready for his new job. First he visited the Forest Service compound, where he found Mr. Mainwaring sitting at a desk grumbling about paperwork. Together they called the university and Lee was given specific directions on the sampling work that he was to do and how to handle the sample bottles. By the time they were off the phone, both he and Ranger Mainwaring were thoroughly briefed on the process he was to follow. But the university professor handling the project asked if he could come out and accompany them on their first day in the water. They agreed to meet Monday morning at the truck stop.

When they completed the call to the university, the ranger produced more detailed topographical maps similar to the ones that Kurt had been using. Carefully they traced the route Lee and his friends would be taking on the river, marking off landmarks and distances so the samples could be taken at regular intervals. When they finished, they put the maps in waterproof folders and Lee carefully stored them in the garage along with the rows and rows of sample bottles.

Next, Lee drove back to the Gambles store in Big River, where he purchased some new Levis, work shirts, a small cooler for soft drinks, and a lunch box. He started to buy work boots, but the store owner
advised against it. “If you’re going to be working in a raft, I’d buy some rubber-soled shoes. Probably the same kind of shoes that you would use to play basketball.” Lee agreed and, since he had a good pair, decided to pass on shoes. Soon he was on his way back to St. Dubois.

He was sitting at the corner table in the café., grinning widely, when the elated Mike and Tony came charging through the door. They pummeled him unmercifully, playfully protesting that they were going to miss their sawmill jobs and complaining about this new work being thrust on them. In truth, they were delighted that they would be spending the remainder of the summer floating down the river on a raft.

Finally. Mike sat back on his chair and started laughing. “You should have seen Old Man Benton’s face when I told him that I was really going to miss the green chain in that mill. He actually thought I was serious.” He went into gales of laughter.

When Mike finished laughing, he sat back, gasping for air. At the same time, he was waving his hand in the air, trying to get their attention. When he was finally able to speak, he gasped out his message. “We gotta go see the sheriff first thing day-after-tomorrow. We have to be in his office at 8 a.m. Friday. Mr. Benton said to plan on being there most of the day. Apparently the sheriff wants to give us some training for the new job.”

Lee was confused. “What kinda training? He isn’t involved in this sampling business, is he?”

“I dunno, Lee. But Mr. Benton said to be there and he’s signing the paychecks.”

“No question about it. We’ll be there. I just can’t imagine what he has planned for us. Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. The guy from the university asked me not to go out until he came out here and trained us on water sampling techniques. He’s going to meet us here at 9 a.m. on Monday.”

Lee thought for a moment. “Actually, it works out well. Tomorrow, we can get the raft ready to go. Then Friday we’ll meet with the sheriff and on Monday we can kick off the river work. Maybe we can move the raft down here over the weekend so we’re ready to go when the
professor gets here. I guess we can leave it over on the edge of the parking lot, can’t we? Does that sound okay to you guys?”

“Yeah.” “Sounds good to me.” There was no dissent.