In the last part Ben conducted a church service and three weddings in Cloverdale, California. He learned that Beth could sing beautifully. They continued their northerly trek, veering off the main road as the Holy Spirit led them to a sawmill operation.
^^^^^^^^^^
Ben approached what appeared to be a tent where a boss might work, leaving Beth with the wagon and team. “Looking for help?” Ben asked an older man sitting at a makeshift table working at some ciphers.
“Maybe. You’ll have ta wait ‘til nearly dark fer Perkins to come in. He’s …” The old man pointed skyward with the two fingers that remained of his right hand, “… in the timber.”
Ben thanked him and returned to Beth. “It’ll be a couple hours. Let’s set up a camp out there at the edge, away from the steam-powered saw. I’ll work the team a while.”
Beth was agreeable.
“Lookin’ fer work, are ya?” the boss was Ben’s twin in size and shape, although thirty years his senior. “Ever do any loggin’?”
“Some, back in Arkansas. Some pine, mostly hardwoods, oaks. But mostly firewood.”
“See yer hands.”
Ben showed him.
“Hmmmp. Not calloused, but you work. You got size, give ya that. I pay two dollars a day, ax or bucksaw. C’n ya work chains an’ tackle?”
Ben nodded.
“We walk up the hill at first light. Ya got a woman. C’n she cook biscuits? New cook. He’s fine with beans ‘r meat, but his biscuits ‘r bricks.”
“She can cook.”
“Dollar a day fer all she c’n bake up. She don’t have ta do nuttin’ else. Oh, an’ she’s safe ‘nough up here. These’re fine boys up here. No liquor. That’s the key. Just makes men stupid… an’ careless.”
Ben nodded his agreement and gratitude.
Perkins called to him again as he began to walk away. “Meals are included. Hey, yer team. C’n they pull a log?”
Ben turned back. “They’re green. I’m just training them to the harness. I wouldn’t trust them on a slope.”
“C’n they pull to a block an’ tackle?” He meant for the more stable operation of loading logs onto a wagon.
“If I’m the one to handle them?”
Perkins squinted and nodded. “Dollar a day that we use ‘em.”
“Each?” Ben asked.
“Each.” Perkins dismissed Ben as if he’d just lost a bargain.
Beth was excited about the whole prospect – nervous about being the only woman in a camp full of men out in the wild, but excited to be of use.
+++
The first day was work with the team loading logs.
Perkins sought out Ben before light, waking him by softly calling his name. Ben was startled not by being awakened, but by the shock that the ruffian as Perkins presented the day before could behave softly and gently.
“You’ll see what I mean about bricks fer biscuits. We’ll use yer team this morning. Reason we didn’t bring any logs down yesterd’y. Our team couldn’t get the logs down and load ‘em up too ‘fore dark.”
“I’m up,” Ben said, making sure he didn’t uncover Beth while he rose with Perkins standing close by.
“Tell the Missus ta ask fer Chuck. Ain’t his name, but that’s what he is, Chuck.”
“Chuck,” Beth said, her head under the cover.
Perkins laughed, “Chuck.” He repeated as if mimicking Beth. He laughed again.
Ben’s team performed to his satisfaction.
With two wagons loaded, Ben’s team was expected to be hitched to the second one. Another man, Dell, Ben learned was the driver. Ben had looked the brakes over before agreeing to his team’s use.
“You know how to use those brakes, Dell?”
Dell didn’t take offense. Ben had already told him that the team was still green.
“They’ve never pulled a load before,” Ben said. “And downhill …”
“I’ll be careful with ‘em, Ben.” Dell’s tone was convincing.
Dell’s gentle persuading them to put muscle into getting the load moving pleased Ben. Hearing his name called, Ben jogged up the hill to Perkins who handed him an ax and pointed to a redwood of about three feet in diameter. “Make it fall downhill. Always downhill. Safer that way,” Perkins shouted.
When Ben reached the tree, he quickly surveyed the surroundings and then analyzed the tree, determining how the tree’s weight and the direction of the wind would affect its fall. He noticed Perkin’s nod of approval as he began chopping the wedge that would determine the tree’s fall. Ben was surprised how easily the redwood chopped, wondering why the softwood tree was in such demand.
He soon wished he had gloves, blisters forming with his first tree, the first tree he’d chopped in nearly twenty years. He could hardly believe the time that had passed.
As soon as the tree fell, it was swarmed onto by a crew ofyoung Indians wielding axes as they stripped the tree of its limbs. They worked one fallen tree after another, clearing the tree of the limbs for the sawmen to work.
The day done, and not a minute too soon for Ben, he made the trek down the slope with Perkins.
“Knew ya could work. Saw it in ya.”
“You have any gloves?” Ben asked.
“A dollar,” was the answer. Perkins laughed at Ben’s silence. “Hah! Leather. Dollar well-spent.”
Perkins answered Ben’s question about the Indians. “Yuki reservation over the next rise east. We’ll stop cuttin’ there, an’ turn ar’ work north. “The Yuki. This was their land. All of it. But you know what the govement does. Took it. Then moved a dozen other tribes in on ‘em on the reservation given to ‘em. I pay ‘em… but no liquor. No Sir. Maybe some others do, but not here.”
Ben nodded agreement.
A short time later Ben was eating the most delicious biscuit he’s ever tasted. After a sponge bath, he and Beth dropped off to sleep despite the noise of those not as tired as they were.
Happy to have the gloves, Ben prepared for a full day of tree chopping, wondering how this fit into his calling.
He would soon learn.
Preparing to chop down his tree, the wedge already made, he looked to where his tree would fall, as well as those working around him. Something didn’t feel right. Ben looked to the tree about forty feet away that a man was on the last strokes of dropping. With the same intense, whoop as his day with the 56-team cable-hauling day in San Francisco, Ben let out a holler that Beth heard down in the camp – “HOLD!”
Ben ran over to the timberman, grabbing his ax before it made one more fateful chop.
“Friend, hold,” Ben commanded.
“Clear away!” Ben shouted to everyone downhill of the tree, especially to the right as much as ninety degrees from the prescribed direction of the tree’s planned fall. “Clear away!” Ben waved his arms.
No one wanted a two- or three-hundred-foot tree to fall anywhere near where they stood. Everyone scrambled to right angles from Ben. Within a moment, without another ax chop, the tree began to twist, first leaning uphill, and then down. Twisting all the more, it fell totally contrary to plan. Landing, it rolled, slapping limbs the fifty feet of its travel.
The timberman gave Ben an appreciative nod. Within a moment, Perkins was at his side. “Wha’d ya see, man? Wha’d ya see?”
“Didn’t see it. Felt it.” Ben pounded his chest with his fist.
Perkins stared at him. “Saved men’s lives, ya did. We’re all in yer debt.”
“Did what God called me up here to do,” Ben said. “Be pulling out in the morning.”
Perkins didn’t understand, but he nodded anyway. “Could you? Could you wait ‘til yer wife could show Chuck how ta bake them biscuits?”
Ben laughed, nodding agreement as he returned to his tree.
“Take a break,” the timberman said. “I’ll finish yours. And thank you. I never saw that in that tree.”
“No one could,” Ben said. “God told me. That’s the truth.”
The man stared at Ben a minute, and then went to his chopping.
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