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  Never Summer

  A Novel

  Mark H. Gaffney

  Never Summer: A Novel

  Copyright © 2016 Mark H. Gaffney All Rights Reserved

  Published by:

  Trine Day LLC

  PO Box 577

  Walterville, OR 97489

  1-800-556-2012

  www.TrineDay.com

  [email protected]

  Library of Congress Control Number:

  Gaffney, Mark —1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Includes references and index.

  Epub (ISBN-13) 978-1-63424-130-4

  Mobi (ISBN-13) 978-1-63424-131-1

  Print (ISBN-13) 978-1-63424-129-8

  1. Fiction I. Gaffney, Mark H. II. Title

  First Edition

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the USA

  Distribution to the Trade by:

  Independent Publishers Group (IPG)

  814 North Franklin Street

  Chicago, Illinois 60610

  312.337.0747

  www.ipgbook.com

  to Jeanie

  The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is now.

  – Chinese proverb

  Orlando:

  Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love:

  And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey

  With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,

  Thy huntress’ name, that my full life doth sway.

  O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books,

  And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character,

  That every eye, which in this forest looks,

  Shall see thy virtue witness’d everywhere.

  – William Shalespeare,

  As You Like It, Act III. Scene II

  It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

  – John Muir, July 1890

  BOOK ONE

  ONE

  The late afternoon sun was ablaze on the logging deck, winking off bright steel surfaces polished by long use, the wages of sweat and diesel.

  The enormous clear-cut surrounding the dock was a scene of carnage – raw stumps and hip-deep slash, the remnants of an ancient forest whose time had come. The air, by contrast, was sweetly fragrant with conifer, death’s lingering afterbirth.

  At one side loomed an enormous mountain of recently skidded logs, ready to be loaded up and hauled away, next morning.

  A few chainsaws were still screaming in the woods, men laboring for their keep. But most of the crew had called it quits for the day.

  A half dozen men in work clothes milled about on the deck. The mood was laid-back, with a hint of tired bones. Two loggers sipped coffee from a thermos as they harangued a third man about nothing in particular, the ribbing all in jest but with just enough edge to push their comrade across the threshold of a smile. When his stony demeanor broke to the humor, the other two exchanged a glance. One sealed the moment with a raucous laugh.

  Crew boss Jacques St. Clair climbed down off his D-6 Caterpillar and stood among his men. The chief removed his leather gloves and casually slapped his leg as he eyed his fifteen-ton tractor with a mix of pride and affection. The word “Puss” was inscribed in black letters under a big-busted nude on the yellow chassis. The cat’s six-cylinder 120-horsepower diesel engine rumbled smoothly at idle. A hot column of blue exhaust rose from the stack.

  St. Clair had a hole in his chiseled face. It flickered darkly when he talked like the negative of a flashing sign. The hole was no larger than the previous occupant, a front incisor. But everything is relative and the absent enamel grabbed the eye like no ivory ever could. Most of the time, when the boss spoke, the dark hole merely teased. But when his blood rose as it often did, the empty space loomed front and center, larger than life.

  Nearby stood a scruffy-haired kid named Tom Lacey. Tom was skinny as a bean pole and wore wire-frame glasses. He was the smallest man on the crew by at least forty pounds, and the shortest by several inches. The brainy sort, Tom could not help the fact that he was inquisitive by nature. On his first day on the job, the previous spring, when Jacques had explained the ropes, Tom wanted to ask point-blank about that missing front tooth. “Boss, don’t mean to be rude but how did you come by that hole in your mouth? Mischance? An accident maybe?”

  The answer had come in time. Now, seasoned by a year running a chainsaw, Tom understood that all manner of bad things happen to men who toil in the woods for a living. It is a dangerous profession.

  As the loggers turned for home and strolled toward the trucks, saws slung over their shoulders, the long bars tipped down, balanced easily by gloved hands, a six-foot-four monster of a man named Jimmy Thurston came shagging up to the deck. The big logger was empty-handed, without his chainsaw, and was mumbling under his breath. The man looked defeated, diminished despite his great size. Thurston was an irresolute sort of man, a bit dim around the edges, which accounted for his nickname, “Fuzzy.”

  “Where’s your saw?” Jacques wanted to know.

  “Boss, I fucked up,” said Thurston, motioning with his head.

  Someone said, “Look at that leaner! Holy shit!”

  Overhearing, the other men stopped and turned.

  “Good Christ!”

  “A widow-maker!”

  The problem was clear at a glance. Thurston had been working one of the last patches of standing timber, but in the course of dropping a big fir had made his back cut too low. The tree toppled the wrong way. In logger parlance, it “came back on him.” The cut-through trunk was hung-up in a nearby crown. Thurston had then dropped a larger tree to shake the hanger free and take it down. But the second tree also got hung up, compounding the problem. Ditto on his third attempt. The fourth cut made things worse yet, as Thurston had jammed his saw beyond redemption.

  Thurston now had five trees tangled up together, totaling several tons of biomass. In addition to that, his chainsaw was out of action. There was no easy way to drop the mess without grave risk. When cut-through stems are tangled in this way it’s nearly impossible to know how they will go down.

  It was a logger’s nightmare. Even a glancing blow from an errant trunk can kill a man in an instant. Believe it.

  Thurston was unnerved and had walked away from it. Now, he began to importune Jacques. He wanted the boss to solve his problem, even at the risk of damaging or destroying his saw, by pushing the tangled mess over with the D-6 cat. But the chief would have none of it.

  “No way. Borrow a saw and clean up your own mess.”

  A shadow crossed Jimmy’s face. The man shifted his feet and sunk his hands deeper in his pockets. No solution was coming from that direction.

  The boss set his jaw. There was a long unpleasant silence on the landing.

  “Hey, not a problem,” said Tom breezily. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “No, kid,” said Jacques, reaching out. “Wait! It’s too dangerous.”

  But Tom was already striding toward the mess, saw in hand. He scampered over and through the green trash like he was walking on water.

  The landing fell silent. All eyes were watching.

  Moving with fluid ease amidst the tangled trunks, Tom studied it up and down for maybe twenty seconds. Then, he started his saw with a yank and made a single cut. Wood chips began to fly. Moments later, there was a loud snaaaapping and a thunder
ous explosion as it all came crashing down.

  There was an audible gasp from the men on the deck as Tom disappeared in a cloud of dust and flying fir needles.

  “Oh shit!” someone said.

  But as the dust settled, Tom reappeared holding up Thurston’s chainsaw like it was a trophy. A shout went up from the landing as the men cheered him. One guy even threw his tin hat in the air.

  “Way to go, kid!”

  “All right!”

  “Hallelujah!”

  “Nice work.”

  TWO

  Tom Lacey derived a strange and ecstatic joy from running a chainsaw. It was a hands-on kind of thrill and satisfied something in him, something that he had missed (without ever knowing it) during his failed time at the university. That previous period had been an inglorious abortion. He was happy it was behind him and to have moved on.

  But if Tom was a refugee from his past, he gave little indication.

  At home in the woods, he liked the gritty work. Not that he meant to stick with it; he had no plan to make a career of logging. Truth was, he had no plans for much of anything, having given up thinking about the future or what tomorrow might bring. He had fallen into a pattern of simply living day to day, just taking things as they came. The work was fine for now and that was good enough. Let the future take care of itself.

  Running a chainsaw was all about the existential present, being in the visceral now. It required a high degree of situational awareness. A man who let his mind wander off while running a chainsaw risked serious injury or worse in the blink-of-an-eye. There was almost no margin for error. This was the weird flip-side, the hallelujah part of it, because same the same element of risk that kept a man on his toes also made the work interesting. Without the risk it would have been ordinary, humdrum.

  Tom lived for the surge, the irresistible bite of the sharp chain, the power of the saw working its will upon the wood. From the moment the old man had first thrust that beat-out Homelite into his hands, more than a year before, he had taken to it with an alacrity that astounded him (and the old man to boot).

  Though after a year in the big timber Tom was now a seasoned cutter, the first weeks on Jacques crew had been rough, mainly due to his small size. Not that there was any doubt that the skinny kid with the granny glasses had an aptitude for teasing performance out of a chainsaw.

  The boss certainly had been impressed. Jacques liked the way his new man “got after it.” Tom did not just work; he attacked the timber. The kid did not know the meaning of “lazy” or “slouch” or “take it easy.” In Jacques’ experience this was unusual. It occurred to him that the kid might be working off a pretty big chip on his shoulder. But hey, so what? Some of the toughest guys Jacques had ever known were small men who compensated for it with grit.

  Yet, despite Tom’s aptitude for the work, initially most of the crew had been wary of him. They kept their distance, probably because they did not know what to make of him. Tom was different.

  “He’s a philosophy student for Crissake,” they objected, but Jacques just laughed at them. When this had no effect they complained, feigning indignation, that he was too damn small to be knocking down large stems; as if they were affronted by the fact. True enough, Tom stood only five-feet-six (barely) and weighed a hundred and twenty pounds (in his boots). Next to them he was a runt, a dwarf among giants. This in a trade dominated by brutes since the gyppo days and steam donkeys.

  But Jacques scoffed at them. What did size have to do with it? What did size have to do with anything? Completely irrelevant. The bottom line was production, pure and simple. The boss knew a man didn’t have to be Paul Bunyan anymore to make it in the woods. So what if the trade had descended from stringy six-foot men capable of working a misery whip (a two-man cross-cut saw) all day? Things had changed and greatly since the days of the springboard and double-headed axe. All of that was now ancient history thanks to gas motors, miniaturization, lightweight alloys and space age plastics.

  With the advent of the new lightweight saws, muscle had given way. Armed with one of the late models an average sized Joe, even a small man, could cut circles around macho loggers hamstrung by outdated equipment. It was a paradox that even as the labor force shrank over the years, the woods had opened up to smaller men, yes, even runts like Tom Lacey. It was why Jacques was willing to give the kid a shot. “Hell, I’d do the same for any man who wants to work. Besides, I need cutters. I’m short handed.” Jacques was always short on loggers.

  It certainly did not take him long to size up a new prospect. Shove an idling chainsaw into a man’s hands and an experienced eye can tell within a matter of minutes if he has what it takes. Bingo! In the boss’s experience most guys flunk the test. Even big men. Why? Simple. Most guys flinch at the compact fury of a chainsaw. They are intimidated, by the oh-so-short leash, by the ferocious proximity of all of that tightly-bundled power. Many men are cowered by the decibels alone, driven to distraction by the insane racket, by engine noise so earsplitting a man cannot hear himself think. It’s why loggers must learn to “feel” their surroundings.

  Not to mention the chain. The menace of three-dozen razor sharp teeth just inches from a man’s leg can be hair-raising. Imagine the indifference of a machete slicing through the soft flesh of a watermelon and you will appreciate the extraordinary vulnerability of a chainsaw operator, shielded from the swift shredding of human flesh by skill alone.

  It’s why the average Joe hesitates, pauses to think about it; a fatal weakness in a timber faller. No wonder most men soon dispense with “that crazy idea” of running a chainsaw professionally, for safer and saner pursuits. As they say: “It ain’t for everyone.”

  But not Tom Lacey. The kid did not know the meaning of hesitation. As Jacques observed with wry approval, with-saw-in-hand Tom was like a well-oiled machine. He never took a break except to take a leak, or to gas up his Husky. He had only one gear. Full out. Open throttle. The kid was a natural born timber faller, no question about it.

  Eventually, Jacque became annoyed with the crew’s bullshit. “You guys, I’m sick of your whining. Like a bunch of old women. Sure the kid’s green, but he’s already out-producing most of you. He stays, and if you don’t like it, sue me. Better yet, kiss my ass.”

  THREE

  Jacques’ judgment was spot on. Before the first week was done, Tom had demonstrated to all concerned that he could handle a saw with the best of them. He was a natural, a virtuoso. The men shut off their saws just to watch him work.

  “What’s with that guy?”

  “He’s one eager beaver, ain’t he?”

  “Look at the way he drives that thing.”

  “Shit. Gangbusters.”

  “He’s scrappy. I’ll give him that.”

  “That son-of-a-bitch works like there’s no tomorrow.”

  Before long, the ribbing had turned respectful. The men warmed to him. One logger joked that Tom’s skin was so pale because he had ice water in his veins.

  What a motley bunch they were. Tom soon discovered that some of the men, “Red” Callahan, a veteran timber faller, hard-boiled by eighteen years in the woods, Charlie McCoy, and “Dipstick” Dugan, were regular fellows that anyone would be proud to call a friend. But he also learned to steer clear of a few less savory individuals. One logger known simply as “the Preacher” gave the appearance of being a hillbilly and more than lived up to it. The man wore baggy pants held up by suspenders, and crummy boots that might have passed for clod-hoppers. He had a long beard that he liked to fondle and beady little eyes that gawked from under his bushy brow. The Preacher never missed an opportunity to talk about his favorite subject, his own personal salvation; hence, the nickname. Every member of the crew had been subjected on multiple occasions to his long-winded religious harangues. Worse, the Preacher had a tiresome habit of wagging his finger at you, usually in your face, when things did not meet his fastidious approval. When the crew laughed at him, as they invariably did, it only fed his born-again fe
rvor.

  Wolfe Withers was another case. The man had recently been released from Canon City where, according to word around camp, he had done time for murder. Not even Jacques, though, knew the details. Wolfe had a swarthy complexion and a menacing attitude. An air of dark mystery surrounded him because he was a loner, completely asocial, and made no effort to dispel the rumors. When the men tried to engage him in friendly conversation they encountered his nasty disposition. One or two attempts was enough. After that, they backed off and gave him a wide berth.

  And then there was Shorty Dibbs...

  The next Friday was payday, and about quitting time the boss showed up on the landing to pass out the checks. The loggers gathered around.

  The married men usually drove home to be with their families on weekends. On payday, though, they would first make a beeline to the bank in Granby to cash or deposit their checks, then, scattered in all directions.

  On this day Red Callahan and Charlie McCoy strolled across the street to have a cold one at the Nugget before leaving, and invited Tom and Shorty to join them. The saloon was packed and rowdy on a typical Friday afternoon. The Coors was flowing freely.

  The loggers lined up at the bar and Shorty insisted on buying the first round. He was 200 plus pounds and stood well over six feet tall, but was no mental giant, hence, the nickname. Tom wondered why Shorty never took offense when they called him that, but he was beginning to understand. The man was witless as a snowflake.

  After one beer Red and Charlie left for home but Shorty was just getting started. The man was soft-spoken and had a gentle disposition, basically good company so long as he was dry. However, alcohol affected him powerfully, and not for the better. Tom watched as Shorty tossed down double shots of Jack Daniels, back to back, then, called for another. The big logger was on his way to being sloppy drunk. Tom was still working on his first beer when Shorty turned and began talking to a fellow Tom did not know.

  “Hey, Jack, had any lately.”