Slocum 428 Page 4

  The crowded dining hall had just about quieted down right before the old man spoke. But when he did begin speaking, the remaining din dropped to almost nothing and all of the rangy, beard-faced men swung their heads in his direction. Once he spoke, from the barely concealed smirks on their faces, Slocum knew the older fellow was pulling his leg.

  Why, he had to be—he didn’t look like he could do much more than rassle an unconscious raccoon. But Slocum had been in enough ranch cook shacks, dining messes, and cow camps to know about a bit of joshing of the new man in camp. And this little tirade by the old man had all the earmarks of it.

  Problem was, and Slocum knew he had to temper his outlook a mite, those fellows from earlier had at first seemed like they might be up to the job of taking him down, but they hadn’t. Still, he’d been the one to pay for it.

  They had up and skedaddled by the time he’d returned from bringing a load of firewood to Frenchy’s kitchen, so he never got the chance to quiz them about who they were working for and why in the hell they had attacked him. Though he was pretty sure it was just a case of ribbing the new arrival, Slocum was nonetheless skittish.

  “What you say to that, Slocum?” said Frenchy, hauling in yet another platter of hot elk steaks, sawed off the frozen carcass just that afternoon—Slocum knew because he’d helped with the task.

  He set his fork and knife down across the chipped enamelware plate, raked his callused fingers through his thickening beard. He was glad he hadn’t shaved weeks back, and even gladder when he had stayed his razor hand just an hour before he found out back in Timber Hills about the potential logging job.

  Not only did having a beard help keep the cold air away from his face, but showing up in camp with a decent set of whiskers made him seem less of a greenhorn to these woods-hardened men. Each one of them had been seasoned in the frosty pitch and thundering crashes of old-growth pines. They took them down with whipsaws, then stood back as the long carcasses of the big brute trees thundered down to the frozen earth, raking the hell out of anything in their path on the way down, before slamming flat anything that was dumb enough to stay rooted beneath them as they fell.

  “I tell you what . . . old-timer.” Slocum let that remark hang in the air for a few moments. It stung the old buck—that much was for certain. Slocum flicked his eyes toward the graying gent, whose smiling face bunched into a tight pucker, his dark eyes glinting for a few seconds. Until the glances of the other men settled on him, that is. Then he let a slow grin spread wide on his face.

  That was a relief to Slocum. He was tired of games today, dog-tired from having to dole out significant fisticuffs to those two morons, and triple-tired from the quantity of stove lengths he’d split all day. Even Frenchy himself had marveled at the massive mound of raw split wood Slocum had managed to get through.

  “Never has no one sized it up quite so fast as you, Slocum,” the portly cook had said, rubbing his paunch with an appreciative hand, his other scratching in his beard as if looking for remnants of snacks he’d stored there earlier.

  Slocum had wanted to work hard, to exercise his body, his one most reliable weapon—besides his well-oiled Colt Navy, that is. He always tried to take care of himself that way, and was rarely let down by some failing of it. He’d seen countless gunmen and ranchers, cowboys, and drifters who’d all let their bodies go to seed, who’d trusted in the powers of youth, trusting blindly that the bodies of their youth would never wane, only to be let down at a crucial moment.

  And now he was dog-bone-tired and not looking for another round of fighting, real or imagined.

  “I would say, old-timer, that you have the right to believe whatever it is you want. But know this.” Slocum held up a cautionary finger. “If there’s one thing that many a man has tried to do, it’s best me in a round of hard pit-fighting. And while some of them have done so, it hasn’t been pretty for either side. Not bragging much, mind you, just a simple fact.” All the while he said this, he smirked, knowing he was teasing the old man before his cohorts, and knowing that they all knew it, too.

  Slocum always tried to keep in mind one thing his long-dead father had once told him: “You can say anything you want to about anyone you want to, John, as long as you say it with a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eye. Friend, enemy, or in between, it doesn’t matter much. Just have at it—with a smile, that is.”

  The entire dinner, once he proved that he could take what they dished out and even dish a heaping helping right back to them, was a pretty favorable affair, all things considered. They were a bunch of good men out there to do a rough job, much the same as the men in a hundred cow camps and cow towns. For a while Slocum let himself slip into the genuineness of the camaraderie, the good-natured revelry that comes up in a group of hardworking men at the end of a long day’s labors. It was a fleeting thing, he knew, just as it always was on trail drives and ranch jobs.

  But he decided he would ride it out as long as he needed to. And considering the paltry state of affairs that was his wallet, he felt certain he’d need a whole lot more good days up here in the sticks just to climb back out of the money hole he’d recently found himself in. So he put up with it and soon learned about the forest in which they were working. It would be a busy winter season, made especially so by orders from the “Far Orient,” as one young bookish logger put it.

  Soon the talk flowed with the hot coffee, and though a number of men broke off in small groups to head to bed, others lingered by the stove, turning occasionally to redden the other sides of their faces, playing dominoes and cards with their fellows. Around the table a throng of men stayed, eager to talk about the woods they’d spent the entire day in.

  Reminded Slocum of the cowboys who would linger in a stable or leave their bedroll early just to spend time with other cowboys, watching over the herd, talking horses, comparing notes about the terrain and weather.

  He also noticed that the men appeared to be split unevenly into two rough groups. One was filled with what he came to think of as the scowlers, the half of the men who didn’t even bother offering him the pretense of a smile. They just sneered at him as if he were a disease-riddled bum. The others treated him with kind caution that looked to be fast breaking down into camaraderie once the conversation flowed.

  It was curious and worth noting, he thought, that the men in neither group conversed much with those in the other. Not unusual in large groups of men, but given all the strangeness of the day, Slocum couldn’t help wondering if this wasn’t another in the seemingly unending series of oddities about the Tamarack Logging Camp.

  “One thing you got to get straight in your head once you get out there,” said a young climber named Ben, “is that them trees won’t do much of what you ask ’em to. Oh, they all fall if you give ’em enough strokes to the trunk. But the key is to be on the safe side of the trunk when she starts to go!” The young man thought that was about the funniest thing he’d heard in quite some time, given the guffawing ruckus he made. The other men just rolled their eyes at the young man, obviously used to his odd sense of humor.

  “Pay him no never mind, Slocum,” said a salt-and-pepper-bearded man, not particularly tall or wide, but solid-looking, as if he were all bone and muscle, all hard worker. He plucked his stubby pipe from between his lips. “He’s a pup, but he’s good at what he does.”

  That made Ben blush and seemed to Slocum as good as telling him he was full of beans. A compliment paid among workingmen often had that effect.

  The older, solid man drew on his pipe, let the smoke out in a leisurely stream, then continued. “Occurs to me we haven’t asked Slocum what his experience in the forest has been.”

  Slocum couldn’t help smiling. This was the one question he’d be awaiting, and a little surprised that they hadn’t yet asked him. All eyes swung to him, even the men closer to the stove, huddled over coffee, shuffling chipped dominoes and plinking checkers, darning their h
oley wool socks, or slapping down pasteboard cards. All activity paused. This was their chance to hear if the newcomer was a braggart, and to hear of his experiences. Unless, of course, he was a braggart.

  Slocum knew all eyes were on him, so he chose his words carefully, chewed them like a good steak before speaking. Finally he said, “I don’t have as much experience as most of you. But I have spent time swinging an axe on a couple of forest crews, have bucked plenty of board feet of lumber working at a sawmill, and have cut my share and then some of logs for cabins, though mostly for burning to keep ranch hands warm. No getting around that when you’re working cattle country up high in the Northern Rockies. Those winters get cold.”

  “Never understood why cowfolks and such think they need to spread their cattle all over hill and yon.” It was the old man again. “Keep ’em down in the low country, I say. Down where they can’t bother a man making an honest living in the woods.”

  Slocum bristled slightly. “You saying working cattle is dishonest?”

  The old man squinted through his pipe smoke. “Now I ain’t saying no and I ain’t saying yes. What I am calling into question is whether it’s work at all.” He drew once again on a pipe, a little too emphatically for Slocum.

  Another test. But Slocum decided he’d been through enough that day and would let the old man have his fun another time. He certainly wasn’t about to let the old buck goad him into a kerfuffle.

  Before he could say as much, make his excuses, and head to the bunk Frenchy had assigned to him earlier, a gust of sudden wind rocked into the thick, log wall cabin, driving smoke back down the chimney. One man who had, moments before, announced he was bushed and was calling it a night had reached for the door handle when the gust hit.

  The wind itself wasn’t much of an event to cause concern, other than for someone to twist the damper handle on the stove pipe in an attempt to slow the backwash of smoke. But what followed it as if carried on the wind itself did raise everyone’s eyebrows.

  The long, plaintive wail, at once wolflike and human, did not pinch out but continued, building in depth and becoming a low guttural growl, snapping and harsh. Men from both unofficial groups whitened and widened their eyes. Slocum couldn’t help feeling the same spine-freezing chill he’d felt the previous night, as if bony fingers of the long-dead were raking his backbone, tapping his scalp, ready to tighten around his neck.

  The sounds dropped off instantly, replaced with another slamming gust of wind. Moments later the sounds of animal rage began again, closer to the cabin. The men were all riveted, watching the side of the cabin as if the very frosted log walls might explode inward at any second. Slocum fancied he heard footsteps crunching hard in the snow outside. He moved cautiously to the door, shucked his Colt Navy on the way, and laid a bare hand on the latch. The sounds abated and Slocum, listening to a flurry of whispered protestations, stayed his hand for a moment.

  “Don’t go out there, Slocum. Bad news.”

  “What do you mean by that?” he said in a low voice.

  “I mean, it’s the skoocoom, man!”

  That was what Jigger had told him earlier, and the boss man had reacted in much the same way. But the skoocoom was a fairy story, nothing more. At least that was what he had believed up until last night. Then he heard that thing, saw those green-yellow eyes staring him down from the darkness outside his meager fire’s circle of light. Now he was just plain confused about skoocooms. Doubly so since it seemed these Tamarack loggers actually believed in the creature.

  But now that he was faced with it once again, he was determined to figure out what in the hell it was, despite being admittedly disturbed once again by the freakish sounds.

  He swallowed deep, snatched up the bail of a lantern hanging on a hook from a ceiling beam, and wrenched the door inward. He held the lantern aloft before him and stood in the doorway a moment before venturing out onto the path worn in the snow.

  He heard shuffling and the sounds of chairs squawking on floorboards as men jockeyed in a throng behind him. “Hold up there,” said the thin, salt-and-pepper-bearded man behind him. “I’ll go with ye. You men,” he said to the rest, “don’t go locking this door now. We’ll make a circle around the building then be back afore you know it.”

  Slocum was relieved to have the company. The howls had stopped, but he recalled they had come from something that had drawn quite close to the side of the cabin. And since he’d never seen nor heard of anything that substantial not leaving sign or tracks behind, Slocum was determined to find evidence of it, be it beast or man.

  5

  Jigger McGee arrived in Timber Hills at dusk that night, as the sky purpled and the breaths of the few people hustling along the boardwalks plumed thick and hung, cloud-like, in the dense, stormy air.

  “That you, Jig?”

  “Who said that?” The small, wiry, fur-clad man spun on his hard rail of a seat behind the pair of mighty Belgians thundering slowly along the darkening street. Two streets north a dog barked, received no answer, tried again.

  “You know damn well who it is, Jig.” Out of the shadows stepped a squat man whose shadowed bulk spoke of great girth.

  “Torrance Whitaker, I shoulda known it was you, wormin’ around in the shadows.” McGee dragged a cuff across his mouth and loosed a stream of tobacco juice. It spattered in a rough spot at the fat man’s feet. The man didn’t even finch, just kept his eyes on Jigger.

  “And my nostrils should have told me it was you coming, McGee. Those foul horses of yours can be smelled from clear across the county. And believe me when I tell you, that isn’t a compliment.” He waved a gloved hand before his face as if a terrible stench had infiltrated his nostrils.

  “Nobody talks about my boys that way and lives it down. So shut your homely, fat face, Whitaker. Or I’ll be glad to do the job for you.”

  “Now aren’t you a defensive little fellow.” Whitaker cast the remark out, but Jigger didn’t rise to the bait.

  “What do you want?” It galled Jigger to think that by asking, he was showing interest in what Whitaker had to say, but he couldn’t help himself. The fact was, Jigger wanted to know just what Whitaker’s plans were, precisely because the fat man was the biggest landowner in those parts, and a major thorn in Jigger’s side. “I’m getting a little tired of you popping up anytime I make a trip to town.”

  “Well now,” said Whitaker, puffing on a finger-thick cigar and doing his best not to shiver from the cold. “Seems to me you ought to be nicer to me. Especially considering I am the one and only person in the world who can make your life better than the living hell it currently is.”

  “How do you know what my life is like?” Jigger’s voice rose in pitch, and a couple of men on the far side of the street looked up from their conversation.

  “Let’s just say that everyone knows what your life is like, Jig. And it isn’t a pretty thought.”

  McGee sputtered and delivered a string of blue oaths, but Whitaker kept right on talking. “First there’s the debt load you carry. Then there’s the poor quality of the work your loggers deliver.”

  “What? What?” Jigger shook with rage and trembled as he looped the lines around the brake and prepared to jump down from the sledge.

  Oddly enough, Torrance Whitaker held his ground and kept right on talking and puffing on his cigar. Despite the creeping cold temperatures, people began to leak out of the fog-windowed storefronts and saloons to hear what the shouting ruckus was all about. And they began to recognize the two combatants as right-full-of-himself, rich-as-sin Torrance Whitaker and Jigger McGee, a solid, if cantankerous, fellow liked by most who took the time to know him.

  Whitaker puffed long on his stogie and glanced in appreciation at the growing crowd. “And then there’s the fact that you have been late on your payments to the bank a few too many times, Mr. McGee.”

  That brought Jigger up short. “What are you
saying? What business is my business to you? Hmm?”

  “Considering I just guaranteed the bank’s solvency in exchange for the presidency of said institution . . . ” Whitaker thumbed his lapels and rocked back on his boot heels. “I’d say I have every right in the world to call into question your haphazard dealings. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you’re a public menace to the fine society of Timber Hills.”

  It was Jigger’s turn to smile, despite what he’d just heard. “What makes you say I’m a menace . . . President Whitaker?”

  “Why, the very fact that you are, as we speak, in danger of defaulting on your loan puts the very life savings of everyone in our fair town at risk.” He sucked in a full chest of air and said in a louder, booming voice, “At great, great risk.”

  Jigger reached into the foot space of his mighty sledge and pulled out a worn leather satchel, packed and strapped tight.

  “What’s that?” said the fat man, his cigar drooping between his chapped pink lips.

  “This?” said Jigger, holding the bag aloft. “Oh, this ain’t nothing much. Just a whole lot of cash.” He leaned forward until the two men’s faces were barely a foot apart, but he spoke loudly. “To make my bank payment in full and on time. Might even be some extra there, too, for next month.”

  “But how is that possible? I told—”

  “You told Deke Tiffins not to buy my logs, is that it?”

  The fat man spluttered, and even in the dim light of the street, folks could see him turning a rich hue of crimson. “I . . . I never . . . ”

  “You never what, Mr. President? You never told the truth in your life? Now that I’ll believe. But you by gum sure did tell ol’ Deke you were going to shut him down if’n he bought my logs. But you seemed to forget—or maybe you never knew, being an outsider and all—that me and Deke, we go waaay back. Come out here to this rugged old country together, in fact.” He smiled as the fat banker’s face puffed and wobbled.