Scaling Tall Timber

Scaling Tall Timber

By

Dave Folsom

This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, or incidents are either products of the authors imagination or used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, localities, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

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Copyright Dave Folsom 1992, 2010 2011 All Rights Reserved

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This book is dedicated to my wife, Sandy, who after fifty years still puts up with me.

Remember friend as you pass by

As you are now, so once was I

As I am now, so you shall be

Prepare for death and follow me

From the tombstone of Jeremiah Mahoney

Died June 24, 1885

49 yrs. 2 mos. 2 ds.

Canyon Ferry, Montana

Author unknown

CHAPTER ONE

Les sat across from me, his legs dangling under a buckskin lodgepole, scowling at his notebook in silence. His anger hadn't subsided during the morning and continued into our lunch break.

You're crazy, man, he said to me, finally setting down the notebook and digging in his cruiser vest for lunch. Deep lines creased his forehead. What you want to leave for? When I didn't answer, he continued, Who the hell am I going to drink beer with?

We lounged in the cool shade of old-growth conifers deep in the Montana wilderness, work sweat running like rivers from under our aluminum hardhats. A breeze touched my skin, feeling good as I chewed cold roast beef. The long hike up the steep mountain had sapped our young hearts. Jumping from log to log following a preset compass line and measuring methodically between sample plots, the heavy forest and the heat made me breathe in short desperate gasps. The forest canopy shielded the hot late May sun, leaving us in a dark moist shelter of giant western red cedar and limby Englemann spruce. My companion wore his cruising vest like mine, heavy with compass, pencils, notebooks and tree measuring instruments over a flannel shirt and black logger jeans. We both wore heavy logger boots, heavy soled, tight-laced and calf-high.

Les picked our stride up the mountain, pushing my soda-cracker ass at near a dead run while dragging a two-chain-trailer tape for measuring slope. He didn't express his displeasure directly, but his killer pace hinted at it. When we finally stopped, he glared at me while standing in his new Buffalo calks, rocking back and forth on a wind-fallen alpine fir, daring the bark to slip. He towered over me, mouthing subtle queries like: Why Sutton's Landing? or You know, don't you, that there ain't nothing there? He'd been after me all morning since I'd told him about the transfer. He was right, of course, and those were the very reasons I'd accepted.

When we stopped at noon he wouldn't let up. The truth was he didn't need me to drink beer; Les could do a respectable job on his own. Lester Dermont at twenty-five stood a couple inches shy of my six foot-four, kept the all the local breweries in business single-handed and stilled the hearts of most women between six and sixty. He wore whiskers long, but neatly trimmed, dark black like his hair. On Saturday nights, Les drove the hundred miles to Butte with his Canadian friends to play semi-pro hockey. I only called him Lester when I wanted to get his goat. Tough as the hobnails on his calf-high logger boots, his left cheek carried a three inch puck scar from mouth to ear to prove it. He liked everyone to think he was western born and bred, but I knew his secret. He learned to play hockey on a park pond in his home town of Nutley, New Jersey.

You're a damn fool, Scotty, why the hell would you want to go to Sutton's Landing? he asked for the hundredth time. Missoula's got the University. Les wasn't interested in the University of Montana as an institution of higher learning, although, like me, he'd graduated from the Forestry School. His thirst for knowledge ended with his diploma. His priorities ran to hockey, beer and women of all ages. I never could decide in what order he arranged them. Once when I asked, he said: They're all number one! amazed that I didn't know. We'd worked together nearly two years woods scaling and timber cruising for Van Sickle Logging. Van Sickle gypo'd for the Northwest Timber Company and the main office had offered me a transfer. To Sutton's Landing, Montana, an operation three hundred miles to the north and close the earth's end according to Les. He didn't know I'd asked for it.

Two weeks later, after a morning of listening to Lester Dermot question my sanity, I loaded meager belongings into my old Ford pickup.

Les leaned on my truck, his bushy head blocking the driver's window, finally accepting that I really was going, but wanting the last word. You're gonna hate it, you know. A month I give ya, then you'll come screaming back begging me to show you the local night life.

I don't think so, I said, anxious to be away and tired of his harping on me.

I know why you're doing this, Les said, suddenly serious. It's the wrong reason, guy. You got to put it behind you.

I need a change. I ignored his attempt at condolence.

If you say so.

I do. I could smell smoke from Intermountain's teepee burner drifting through my truck windows. It hung over the town in a narrow cloud dropping ash like black snow. Rumor said they were going to outlaw the metal cones that burned sawmill residue day and night. Even the companies were looking for ways to get rid of them after last year's fire. Cinders from the teepee burner turned the logs decks in a spectacular fire that endangered part of the town and destroyed millions of dollars worth of sawlogs.

Well, if you insist, I guess there's no talking you out of it.

Nope.

Well, get goin' then. You're blockin' the goddamn street here. Les slugged my shoulder with a ham-sized fist. Tap 'er light, he said.

Only way. I drove away and I could see him in the rearview mirror, standing on the sidewalk, shaking his head.

The sun beat hot on the mirage-covered highway that June day in 1963, softening the tarmac under my bald tires. Highway 93 ribboned north out of Missoula, passed the white-capped Mission Mountains, threading through timbered Flathead Valley and crossing into Canada at Roosville. The transfer papers said Sutton's Landing -- even the name sounded dull -- seven miles short of the Canadian line. I'd tucked papers and dreams, nestled between wool shirts and black denim pants, into a single tin suitcase. They told me to report Monday the fifth, but a cranky coil on the 1954 Ford delayed my departure until the seventh.

The suitcase in the rear of my pickup held everything I owned and wanted to keep, the scarce remains of two years with Van Sickle Logging. I'd decided late one night, after another night of too much beer with Les, that I needed a change. I didn't have a clue what I wanted or why I settled for Sutton's Landing except the feeling that somewhere there had to be something else. Manny Forsell, a professor of botany and tenured by one year, bought for his new wife the little house I owned on River Road. She'd spent the last two weeks doing what I'd never done and scrubbing an eleven month accumulation of dust. Could it have been that long? I drove by the house before I left and stared at the bright living room windows. They'd hung dark a long time.

When the transfer finally came, I envisioned the worst, a desolate outpost, miles from anything to do and a picture of lonely. The vision wasn't improved by Les' continual chipping. Sutton's Landing? Rumors among the woods crew called it a last resort station. Anyone headed there had one foot out the door. Only the real screw-ups tasted a stint at Sutton's Landing, the last worst place before you stepped off the earth. The Logging Manager at Sutton's Landing, named Horne and it fit, was reported to be the toughest around.

Ancient yellow pines, lining the road, guided me along, my path drawn by black asphalt and yellow paint lines. The long drive started pictures flashing in and out like a kaleidoscope, shining brilliant, and then fading away. Knuckles forced white by my grip on the wheel, I tried to shake the visions by closing my eyes hard. The Ford drifted onto the gravel edge and bounced. I forced the truck back, skidding and fish-tailing before it straightened, my heart pounding with old memories.

I topped the last hill at five-thirty in the afternoon after spending an hour in a Kalispell bar looking for an excuse not to go on. I passed through Whitefish and pointed the Ford north following a narrow frost-heaved highway. Sixty miles later, I stopped for my first look at the Kootenai Valley. Outwardly, it emerged the same as a hundred other mountain valleys, wide, regal and guarded by towering tree-covered peaks painted with patches of snow. The horn ring pressed into my chest as I stared through my pulp mill grime-covered windshield. The Kootenai River sliced its way out of Canada, flowing parallel to the highway cutting a wide and meandering course that created islands of thick brush and cottonwood and grass-covered bottom land. The meadows grew lush with the birth of spring between dry alder brush lined channels and backwater slews. The river's steep banked passage cut deep into the valley floor, hinting at a sleeping giant. Captured by snow-crested peaks, my eyes followed the rugged contour rising like a blue-green backdrop and scraping the sky. The afternoon sun languished low and cast dark shadows across the valley; shadows that were long, mysterious and almost magical played in the thick forest of yellow pine, tamarack, and fir. Despite the narrow two-lane highway, fading Burma Shave signs and a distant logging clear-cut, I felt as though I was the first to see it.

In the distance, the valley narrowed and the mountains closed like a gate on the river. I pulled back onto the highway watching vertical rock grow from the river's bank until the water, swallowed by the mountains, disappeared. The town, barely a few dilapidated cabins and a lingering hint of better times, lay wedged between steep foothills and the river. Before leaving Missoula, I asked why they called it Sutton's Landing and no one could remember.

The beauty of the view through the grimy glass of my old Ford took the edge off, but it didn't erase the sense of dread I felt. Sutton's Landing. My Shell Oil road map didn't list it.

The truck's radio faded in and out, crackling and echoing off the Ford's interior, its signal weakened by seventy-five mountainous miles. I turned up the volume to drown the silence. The speaker sounded static and the announcer's voice drained away. My mind drifted to Missoula. Sometimes I could see her face, alive and bright, shaded by a Yankee baseball cap resting on her foot-long ponytail. That day I searched for details, but saw only vague shadows.

The Ford coughed, hesitating momentarily as I passed a rusty metal sign lettered: Sutton's Landing - 1 mile. The highway dropped off an alluvial hill into the river bottom paralleling tall poplars lining the water's edge. Flocks of Mallards and a Whitetail buck watched warily from an alder and dogwood screen.

I stopped for gas on the edge of town. From the unattended gas pumps, I could see the log landing, the largest in the Northwest -- so the company claimed. Its capacity seven million board feet, the Sutton's Landing served five hundred thousand acres of private and federal forest. Rows of stacked logs from the finest timber-growing country in Montana covered the twenty acre landing. I'd read all the company propaganda.

Flat rail cars, loaded high with logs and ready to move, sat silently on a desolate siding, ready for the trip to the main sawmill at Libby, sixty miles south. The mill cut dimension lumber for people to build homes, lumber cut from giant trees centuries old and no one would care where the boards came from. The loading crane's steel boom stood in the middle of the decks like a guardian, with only the top section visible over piled logs.

I started the pump and gas gurgled in the Ford's single behind-the-seat tank. Across the road lay the town, most of the houses screened by ancient yellow pine. I could see two run-down cabins surrounded by un-kept lawns, hinting at bachelor quarters, while two lots away a neatly painted house stood in quick contrast to its neighbors. Stark white posts and a tight-wire fence surrounded a close trimmed yard. They'd added onto the house several times, each section supporting a different shed roof and a unique pitch. In the rear, I could see a stocky woman hanging wash. Each time she bent over she exposed the dark tops of her knee-high stockings. Down the highway, toward the log landing, a weathered sign declared - BAR - in painted block letters.

The wind strayed out of the north, following the river and caressing the pines. The claustrophobic closeness of the mountains and their towering height made me homesick for Missoula.

I paid for the gas in a chicken-coop like building sitting alone behind tall glass-topped pumps. Inside, over a rough lumber counter, multi-colored fishing lures decorated unpainted, water-stained drywall. Spider webs crawled from lure to lure in perfect geometric lines, undisturbed by a desperate angler. Homemade shelves displayed a few basic staples covered with the dust of time and the can of mushroom soup I chose left a circular white spot on the board. From a cold-water cooler, I grabbed a six-pack and halfway to the cash register, returned for a second. It promised to be a long night.

The woman behind the counter sat on a tall wooden stool puffing a filter cigarette. She watched me through cat-eye glasses, her pupils narrow and suspicious, following my movements through the store over the top of a paperback novel. The back half of the room sat empty with walls bare of product or display, its construction halted midway. In the back of my mind, I wondered if the soup dated post-World War II.

You got cash? the woman said, blowing smoke at the ceiling, don't take checks. Twenty percent discount on Canadian money. She had clearly decided that I looked foreign.

Figuring I could always leave the soup, I answered, all American, challenging her to deny it. Her eyes focused on my face as she warily watched me dig for five silver dollars and change. I felt as thought she was memorizing my features so she could describe me later to the Sheriff. I expected her to bite each coin, testing their authenticity, but instead she swept them into a worn Dutch Masters cigar box. The coins rattled as she searched for a dime to return. The cigar box cash register disappeared under the counter and the paperback propped back into place, she ignored me after the sale.

Is everyone in town this friendly? I said, smiling.

Her eyes flashed over the book and carved hate marks on my heart. Yeah, she said, some even friendlier, especially to smart-asses. Her face carried the heavy age lines of a serious smoker, giving her a wicked witch look. Ash dropped from the cigarette onto the counter and she absently brushed it away. I could feel her dagger eyes clawing my back when I went out the door.

I fired up the Ford and drove to the landing. They'd told me at Missoula to report to Augustus Horne, the logging manager. Horne had a reputation throughout the company. Whether it was good or bad depended on the source. One fact was for sure: no one in his right mind called him Augustus, at least not to his face. His few friends called him Gus and the gypos probably worse. I didn't intend on calling him anything since I was already two days late.

The offices stood on the north side of the landing, a mixture of clapboard frame construction and stacked cull two by fours. I parked next to a couple of yellow company rigs. A sign on the door pointed up an outside stairway to the logging manager's office. Since it was Sunday night, I didn't expect him to be in.

I sat in my pickup and stared at that stairway, wanting to turn tail to Missoula. I'd already made one friend and wasn't sure I could stand another. Around me, the buildings looked guilty of deferred maintenance, almost abandoned, as if the owners had decided to use them until they fell down and then move on. The place had the feel of extinction about it. Once prosperous and exciting, molded by fierce loggers and ornery gypo's, now it struggled in its last death throes, already dead and not knowing it. Wondering now why I'd asked for the transfer, I rummaged a church-key out of the pickup jockey box and debated opening a beer. The label, wet from the cold water cooler, slipped off in my hands. I returned the beer to the sack unopened; I still had to check in. It took some convincing before I realized that, despite the stories, Horne probably didn't have horns. I counted fifteen risers to the office door. I took them slowly; hoping the need to step on the last one would never come.

At the top of the stairs, I knocked on a wooden door with peeling paint. When it opened, the knob held by a bear of a man, I could see into a small office decorated with a gray Steelcase desk piled with a mountain of scale books and truck reports. An Underwood manual typewriter gathered dusk on one end of the desk. Nothing in the room suggested comfort.

What do you want?

He stood tall in the doorway, filling it completely with a red checkered wool shirt and high-water canvas pants over tight laced White high-heeled boots. He had dark wavy hair turning to silver and a solid face used to intimidate subordinates. His reputation as a hard, driven man ranged company wide and I suspected he hadn't endeared himself to the locals.

Scott Jackson, I said, they sent me up from Missoula. I'm a scaler.

The hell you say. Every son-of-a-bitch that comes in here's a scaler. What makes you so special?

I'm good at it. I said, defiant.

You'll have a chance to prove it. If you aren't good, I'll kick your skinny ass all the way back to Missoula. Come in here.

I followed him, ignoring his reference to my slight build, into a second office. This room was a duplicate of the first, though larger. Horne's office contained the clutter of a man who had held the same job, in the same space, behind the same scuffed oak desk, for too many years. Piles of records, scale books, truck reports and stacked boxes surrounded the room like a cardboard fort. His years at the remote camp resulted in lofty production records and skinflint cost figures earning Horne unquestioned respect in the New York Office. Word was that he ran the Sutton's Landing operation almost unhindered by upper management.

You're late. Horne grumbled, parking himself behind the desk.

Truck broke down.

Horne looked at me, raking me with his steely eyes, his jaw cast in granite and his lips pursed thin. You get one free one from me, he said, the words coming from deep in his throat, you just had yours, remember that.

If he expected an answer, I disappointed him. There was a long heavy silence before he continued. How much scaling have you done?

Enough, I said, dredging up courage.

I could see a white thinning spot on the top of his head as he studied the papers on his desk. I stood waiting between the door frame, fearing that stepping in would mean surrender and I'd never be able to escape. His silver-streaked hair, noticeably compressed in a circle around his head by his hardhat band, probably accounted for his tight mouth. Those of us who wore the aluminum lids every day frequently had that distinct band line across our foreheads. His sun-darkened hands held a pen that jabbed at the paper in front of him. His square frame tugged at his heavy wool shirt and sinewy arms bulged out of rolled sleeves. From my doorway perch, I couldn't see horns.

Well, come in here, he growled.

I stepped into the room. Cream painted shiplap walls gave it a storeroom look, as if the desk and its occupant where an afterthought. His dark eyes bored holes in everything.

You ever scale on trucks, old-growth timber that averages four feet on the butt? We're running twelve-foot bunks on off-highway trucks. Defect runs twenty-three percent, so I want you to watch it. This company doesn't pay for rot.

I know the defect rules, I said.

Horne's head came up and his eyes gathered me in, inspecting me and assessing what he saw. I steeled myself and stared back.

Sit down, he said, you're too damn tall. He waved at a hardwood chair someone had painted green. Under the chipped enamel, I could see its previous yellow color.

I stepped across the room slowly, moving in a practiced gait, feinting a minor show of resistance. I wanted him to see that I too had White logger boots laced tight.

Let me tell you what it's like here, kid. We start loading in the woods before daylight. The first truck rolls in about six in the morning. There'll be a truck every hour all day long until six or seven in the evening. I want your scale books totaled and in my office every night. We work six days a week between breakup and first snow. Horne hesitated to see if he was getting any reaction. I sat stock still and said nothing. He continued, You have any problems with any of this?

Nope, I said.

Good. If you screw-up, you'll be out of here in a heartbeat.

I'll try to stay around a while. Where's the bunkhouse?

He looked hard at me. A smart mouth will get you out as fast. I've been riding herd on gypo's since before you were born. Anytime you think you're tough enough to try me, come ahead. He waited for that to sink in and when I didn't argue, he said, You got a stick?

Yes.

You be at the scale shack by six tomorrow morning. The bunkhouse and mess are downstairs to the back.

Where's the scale shack?

He gave me a look that suggested that