Nathan snatched it away. “No, it’s not from Jenny. It’s from Lydia.”
“Oh.” There was sharp disappointment in Will’s eyes. He reached for it again, this time without enthusiasm.
Nathan still held it back. “First, you’ve got to promise me something.”
“What?”
“Promise me we’ll talk before you go making any decisions. All right?”
“Talk about what?”
“Promise?”
Now he had Will’s full attention. “What’s in that letter?”
“Uh-uh. Not until you promise.”
A little peeved, Will finally shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
Nathan reached up and handed him the letter. “You can read the whole thing if you like.”
Now Will was openly wary. He took the letter, walked a few steps, and leaned against a tree. Nathan found a stump and sat down, not watching him. For almost five minutes there was hardly a sound except for the soft rustle of the wind in the treetops above them. Nathan knew when Will got to the part about Jenny Pottsworth, because he could hear Will’s breathing tighten, and once or twice there were almost inaudible grunts. He turned in time to see Will turn back one page and start that part over again.
Finally Will folded the letter back together again, then came and handed it to Nathan.
“Will, I—”
He raised his hand. “Can we talk some other time, Uncle Nathan? I think I’ll just walk for a while.”
“Will, I know—”
“I made you a promise, and I’ll be keeping it. But I’d just like some time to think about it now. All right?”
“All right.” Nathan put the letter away and stood up.
Will shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat, then turned and walked on down the path without another word.
“Maybe I’ll come over and see you sometime this week.”
One hand came up and waved, then went back into the pocket, and then he was gone.
Will and a “Scandie”—or Scandinavian—named Olaf Knutson watched Jean Claude Dubuque from the riverbank, waiting for direction from him. He was out in the middle of the logjam that blocked a third of the river’s progress and kept snagging new logs and adding them to the pile as fast as they appeared. The three men had been upriver about half a mile, making the back cut on a huge pine tree, when word came that there was a jam in the river. There was never any question about who would go. “Frenchie,” as everyone but Will called him, was the oldest and most experienced logger in camp and the acknowledged expert on breaking up logjams. He had an uncanny knack for finding the “key log,” that log which hung up on a rock or a snag and caused everything behind it to become blocked. Until the key log was freed, the jam wouldn’t move. Will and Olaf were only there to provide the muscle to help the Frenchman break it up.
For now they both waited while the older man assessed the situation. Both of them carried a pickaroon, an axlike tool but with a pointed head that was driven into a log so it could be “horsed” around by sheer muscle power. Will also carried a cant hook, a five-foot-long pole with a hinged steel hook on one end. This was used for the same purpose and was particularly useful in working with logs in the water.
Will brought the collar of his coat up around his face. There was a north wind blowing today, promising snow later tonight, and the air was biting cold. Both he and Ollie, as he called the Norwegian, wore thick beards to help ward off the cold. That was a new experience for Will. He had never let his beard grow, not even at sea. It came out dark and thick, like Joshua’s, and made him look older than Ollie, even though the Scandie was twenty-one and Will was only seventeen. They wore thick coats, two pairs of pants over their long johns, and heavy woolen caps pulled down over their ears. The clouds from their breath whipped away almost instantly.
Many of the logs had a thin sheen of ice across the bark, which made what Jean Claude was doing all the more dangerous. But he wore hobnailed boots and seemed oblivious to the heightened risk. Will watched in amazement as he worked his way across the logs toward the front end of the jam. Though the man was in his fifties, he was as nimble as a tree squirrel. Short, wiry, tough as the whipsaws they used on the trees, the Frenchman seemed tireless. He too carried a cant hook and used it to help maintain his balance. If he stepped on a log which started to roll on him, he was off it in an instant and on to another.
Will heard the crunch of footsteps and turned around. To his astonishment, he saw Nathan coming toward them, walking swiftly. “Well, hello,” Will said.
“Hello, Will.”
“This is a surprise.”
Nathan grinned from beneath his heavy wool cap. “Thought it would be. Where’s your pa?”
“He’s out cruising along Roaring Creek.” To “cruise” was the lumberman’s term for going through the forest and estimating where the best places to log would be. “Nathan, this is Olaf Knutson. Ollie, this is my uncle Nathan Steed.”
“Yah and hello,” Olaf said in a heavy accent as they shook hands.
“When you said you might come see me this week I didn’t think it would be in the middle of the day.”
Nathan shot him a quick look. “Just wanted to see how Will Steed was getting along.”
Will grimaced. “Well, I haven’t run off to Nauvoo, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s good,” Nathan said, keeping his voice light.
Will’s frown deepened. “To be honest, I’ve thought about it. First, I was hurt. Then I was devastated. Now I’m just plain mad. Not about her choosing Andrew over me. That’s her choice, I guess. But why didn’t she say something? Why didn’t
she
have the courage to write and tell me? I’m sorry, but I don’t accept her reasons.”
He swung the pickaroon at a small tree beside him, burying the point two inches into the wood. “I think that was really rotten, to put it bluntly. So right now, I’m not inclined to even walk across the street to see Jenny Pottsworth, thank you.”
Nathan nodded, deciding there was no sense pursuing that, not here with the other man. They could talk more at the noon mealtime. He turned and looked to where Jean Claude was bent over, peering into the heart of the jam. “This is a bad one,” he commented.
Will turned too, glad for a chance to change the subject. “Yeah. Somebody should have caught this sooner, before we sent all those logs downriver this morning.”
The Frenchman looked up at that moment and waved. If he was surprised to see Nathan there with the other two, he gave no sign. “I think I’ve got it. Will, Ollie, come on out. But be careful. Those logs are very treacherous.”
“I don’t have my spikes,” Nathan called, “but I can work in close to shore.”
“Good.” Jean Claude called to Will again. “Give him the cant hook. You bring the pickaroon.”
Like Jean Claude, both Will and Ollie wore calked boots—the loggers pronounced it “corked”—which gave them some bite into the wood of the logs. Will led the way, hopping cautiously from one log to another, staying on the front end of the jam where the logs were wedged in tightly and wouldn’t roll on him. Ollie followed. In a moment, they stood beside the older man.
Jean Claude took Will’s elbow in one hand and pointed with his cant hook. “There, that’s the one.” He reached in and tapped it.
The log the Frenchman was hitting lay almost at right angles to the current. Through the gaps between the logs, they could see the water rushing beneath their feet. It was hissing angrily. Will couldn’t see the far end of the log because of the other logs which had piled up on top of it, but it was at least a thirty-footer, maybe more. And it was three feet thick at least. And there lay the problem. One end had caught on a rock. The log had swung sideways and hung up on a second rock. It was like dropping a thirty-foot-wide dam in the river. Immediately, several other logs slammed in against it, wedging tighter. Then the power of the current began forcing logs up and over and down and under, like jackstraws being tossed in the wind. The place where the three men stood, right near the front of the jam, was now four or five feet out of the water.
Jean Claude was shouting now over the roar of the river. “We’re going to have to get these other logs off it or it’ll never budge.” He pointed. “We’ll start with this top one. Will, you get on that end. Ollie, you take the middle.”
The pickaroons and the cant hook dug into the uppermost log, another one that was about three feet thick and about twenty-four feet long. “Ready! One. Two. Three. Heave!” They laid their weight into it, and the log moved about a foot. It had to go up and over the end of another log, and so it was like moving close to a thousand pounds of dead weight straight uphill.
“One. Two. Three.
Heave!
”
Will’s foot slipped on a patch of ice and he went down hard on one knee. He cried out as he felt the rough bark take off the skin, even through his pants. But the log moved another foot and a half. One end swung up and over the log beneath it. The Norwegian yanked his pickaroon free and gave the log a final shove with his boot. Like some great fish, it rolled slowly over the other logs and fell with a mighty splash into the river directly in front of the jam. It almost buried itself in the water, then surfaced again and slowly started to move away.
As the three of them worked the center of the jam, moving a second log and then a third, Nathan did what he could from where he was. His boots were not calked, so he stayed within a few feet of the bank. Should he slip, he would not be in too deep and be swept away. As much as he could, he shoved the smaller logs out into the current where they would clear the jam and not add any more pressure to it.
Out farther, the three men had moved all but the last log that had ridden up and over the key log. “All right,” Jean Claude said, pausing for a moment to catch his breath. “Once we get this last one out, then we’ve got to relieve the pressure from behind it a little. But watch it. If it starts to break up, then—”
But the very thing about which he was warning them happened at that instant. There were several hundred tons of logs being driven by a swift current pushing against the key log. But now the weight holding that log down against the rocks was almost gone. With a sudden, violent lurch, one end of the key log broke free, turning vertical to the current. The logs started to crack and screech as they rubbed against each other, looking for new space to fill. The Frenchman’s cant hook almost went flying as he lost his balance. But his agility was incredible, and with a yell he jumped to another log, steadying himself with the long tool in his hands.
“It’s going!” he screamed. “Off! Off!”
Olaf Knutson didn’t need to be warned. The key log had been a big one. When it gave way, it was as if a dam had just been blown and now the reservoir behind it rushed in to fill the vacuum. Suddenly everything was moving. The Norwegian went down to one knee, was up in an instant, and started for shore, frantically hopping from log to log. As he leaped from one big log to a smaller one—only two or three feet in diameter—the logs around that one started to move forward, feeling the tug of the unshackled current. The smaller log, with nothing to wedge it in, rolled under the sudden weight of the lumberjack. There was one sharp cry and Olaf Knutson plunged into the black water between the logs.
“No!” Will shouted. Jean Claude wheeled around at his shout. There was the flash of a hand clawing at the log, then other logs moved in to fill the newly opened space. In an instant, the logs were wedged in solid again.
“Get off! Get off!” the Frenchman screamed at Will. “I’ll get Ollie.” In three great leaps, Jean Claude was over to the spot where the Scandie had fallen, shoving at the logs beneath his feet in a rage, trying to open up another hole.
Frozen in horror, Will still clung to the handle of the pickaroon that he had buried in the log on which he was standing. He tried to pull it out but it wouldn’t budge. As he reached down with both hands, suddenly the log beneath him heaved up as another log was shoved under it from behind. His left foot slipped, and as he scrambled for balance his right foot hit a thin crust of ice that sheeted one part of the tree. His feet shot out from under him, and he dropped hard. He gasped with shock as both legs were plunged into the icy water and pain shot through his tailbone. Two things saved him at that moment. First, he had dropped to the log like a man jumping astride a horse. Second, the pickaroon pulled free as he grabbed at it. Had it held and he been holding it, his weight would have been too high and the log would have rolled beneath him. As it was, as the log began to turn in the water, he fell forward, like a man clutching around a horse’s neck, and threw his full weight in the opposite direction. Slowly his “mount” righted itself again.
“Will! Will!” Vaguely he was aware of Nathan’s shouts off to his left somewhere. But he had no time to look. He had broken free from the jam now and the log was caught by the rushing current. Slowly it swung around, turning parallel to the shore. Will was now riding backwards downriver. Even if he could get to his feet, there was no longer a “floor” of logs for Will to use to get to shore.
“Will, watch out!”
He turned his head to see Nathan. He was on shore, running, pointing, screaming, waving frantically. Will couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then beneath the water his foot, which was rapidly going numb with the cold, struck a rock. He jerked it away just before it was pulled beneath the log and crushed. Now he realized his danger. He was going through the worst of this narrow stretch of rapids. There were rocks everywhere around him, making great curls in the water. And the water was filled with logs, like huge battering rams coming at him on every side.
“Watch out! Behind you!”
He turned his head and gasped. One jagged black rock, two or three feet across, was big enough that it came six or eight inches out of the water. Around it, the current roared its fury at being blocked. And Will saw that his log was heading straight for it. Wildly, he started paddling, trying to pull the log out of its course. But he was too late. There was a sickening crash as the end of the log slammed into the rock. Will hung on, and for a moment he felt a quick burst of elation. He hadn’t been thrown off. But then, as the current caught his end of the log and turned it sideways, the log started to slowly roll over. He threw his weight the other way again, but this time it was too late. The last thing Will saw before he was sucked beneath the water was Nathan racing along the bank, screaming hoarsely, tearing wildly at his heavy wool coat.