The first time Katherine had paid her a visit, Molly was in the cookhouse cutting steaks as big as a blacksmith’s apron for supper. Katherine opened the conversation with, “I need a bit of feminine advice.”
To which Molly replied, “Well, it looks like you came to the right place, since the only other female in camp is Fatima.”
“Who is Fatima?”
Whack!
went the meat cleaver and Katherine jumped a country mile. “An ass.”
That gave Katherine a start. “You mean literally?”
Whack!
Katherine jumped again, but Molly went on talking. “I couldn’t say about that, seeing as how I don’t exactly recollect what literally means.”
“What I mean is…”
Whack!
“are you saying Fatima…”
Whack!
“is really an…”
“Ass,” Molly supplied.
Whack!
“With long ears?”
Whack!
“And four legs,”
Whack!
“and a fondness for braying,”
Whack!
“like some people I know.”
Whack! Whack! Whack!
Katherine didn’t jump this time, but she did blink three times, noticing each time she opened her eyes how the fat on the underside of Molly’s arms swung to and fro like the dewlap on a cow. Katherine wanted to look beneath her own arms, but Molly still held the meat cleaver and she decided she could wait. After a few more whacks Molly put the meat cleaver down and Katherine felt relief down to her toes.
“So, what bit of feminine advice did you need? Don’t tell me you two lovebirds have started flying at each other.”
“No,” Katherine said solemnly. “We’re not that far along. We haven’t even made it to lovebirds yet.”
“Sounds like you’re about as compatible as a cat and a dog.”
“We don’t really fight, it’s just that we seem so far apart. We’re like two strangers who have the same last name.”
“Sometimes it takes a while for married folk to settle in to the idea they’ve become one. I spent the first twenty years of our marriage trying to convince Big John that two halves made a whole.”
“Did he ever understand?”
“He can’t do fractions.”
Katherine laughed. In spite of their slow beginning, their conversation soon grew warm enough that they could be called friends, although no one in camp would have ever believed Molly capable of such.
Rube Dexter, one of the bull whackers—Katherine still blinked when she heard that word—said Molly was “too mean and too big and talks to herself too much to be anybody’s friend.”
But Molly simply said listening to herself was “better than listening to that maddening malarkey of that Mandarin magpie.”
It took Katherine a minute to figure out just who the Mandarin magpie was, and she was immediately relieved that Molly’s term for her was nothing more than “that too-thin talkative Texan.”
But Molly was taking her into her confidence more each day and after a week or so she confessed to Katherine that she talked to herself because she liked polite company and interesting conversation, and she was the only one in camp, capable of both. “Until you arrived, of course.”
Molly did talk a lot. Wong said her tongue moved faster than the logs she chunked at him, but Katherine enjoyed her brand of humor and the things she had to say. So it was a pleasant surprise to Katherine to find Molly on the back porch of the cookhouse finishing up her laundry that day.
The minute they saw Molly on the cookhouse porch Wong started acting fidgety, like he always did around Molly. It didn’t take Molly a minute to send him packing when she said, “Fetch me a hunk of wood from that woodpile, would you, Katherine?”
“Boss need Wong. Wong better go, fast. Boss get mad.”
Katherine watched him go as fast as his bandy legs would carry him. She couldn’t help laughing, for Wong
was
rather like a magpie, hopping across the yard, maddening malarkey pouring out so fast it sounded like two people talking. “He’s a good sort,” Katherine said, trying to say something kind.
“I don’t know how you can say that. He can’t whisper, he can’t tiptoe, he won’t look you in the eye, and you can’t understand a blessed thing he says. And he’s got more teeth than a falling saw. Every time he smiles I expect to hear someone shout,
Timber
!”
“Oh Molly!”
“I know I don’t have any room to be talking. I’ve got a face that looks like it was rained on before it got dried, but I wouldn’t trust him for a minute. His brains are too close to the ground.”
“His brains… What?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed how short he is.”
Katherine laughed, but she stood up straighter after that. “What’s a falling saw?”
“The crosscut used by the faller, and before you ask me what a faller is, they’re the ones who fell the trees. But don’t you ever go calling one of them a feller.”
“I won’t. Thanks for telling me.”
Faller, not feller
, she reminded herself. She sighed.
“You’ve got a lot to learn. Somebody’s got to teach it to you.”
“I’m glad it’s you,” Katherine said.
Molly laughed. “You don’t have much choice, do you. It’s either me or Fatima.”
“I already know how to bray, thank you, so Fatima couldn’t teach me a thing. I have a mule at home.” The reminder of Clovis sent a wave of homesickness over her.
Molly wrung out the last shirt and tossed it in her basket before turning to help Katherine put her things to soak. “I’ll help you carry your basket to the bushes,” Katherine said.
“It’s heavy.”
“I’m strong.”
“I’m going up the hill a ways.”
“I’ll make it.”
“You’re getting a mite sassy.”
“I’ve had a good teacher.”
“You’ll do.”
“So will you.”
They both laughed, then each of them grabbed a handle of the basket. “Two halves make a whole, right?” Molly said and Katherine agreed. Halfway up the hill they stopped and began spreading Molly’s wash on the wild berry bushes that grew in the clearing there.
The locket Molly always wore around her neck caught on a low branch as she leaned over. “I’ll be a son of a b…”—Molly glanced at Katherine— “bucking saw,” she finished. Katherine laughed, reaching for the locket which had sprung open. The faces of a young man and woman smiled up at her. Katherine looked at it for a moment. “Who is this?”
“Me and that big oaf I’m married to,” Molly replied, taking the locket from Katherine and snapping it shut before dropping it inside her shirt. They hung out the rest of Molly’s laundry and then Katherine went back to the cookhouse to wash out the things she had left to soak.
Katherine realized with something akin to outrage that the kind of life Molly had followed her husband into had laid its hand so harshly upon a face and body that had, at one time, been quite lithe and fair. For days afterward, every time she saw Molly, she couldn’t help remembering the beautiful young woman she had once been.
Her face had been dried and wrinkled by the sun, her hands roughened and knotted by hard work. The body, which had looked as delicate as a china cup in the tiny painting was sturdy and muscled from heavy use. Her dark auburn hair had thinned and lightened to a rosy red-pink, and her teeth weren’t as straight as they once were. Spending her life around a bunch of rough-talking men had made her language as tough as her hide. But her eyes were as sharp and bright and alive as they had ever been, and inside their shining depths lay the secret to living life to its fullest.
Katherine finished her laundry and carried it back to the house to hang out. As she walked, she wished it was as easy to win Alex’s friendship as it had been Molly’s, which hadn’t been easy at all.
Since she had come to the logging camp Katherine hardly saw Alex except at mealtime. He was a hard worker, as was Adrian, and it was easy to see why the two of them were so successful since coming to California.
In time, Katherine and Alex established a kind of routine which they kept by unspoken agreement. Alex kissed her on the cheek when he came down for breakfast each morning and when he came home at night. He carried anything heavy for her, relayed bits of information and the latest news that came by ship from San Francisco. He complimented her on her appearance. He laughed when she had something funny to say. Many was the time she found him looking her way. Once or twice he had gone so far as to kiss her.
But she hadn’t moved into his room.
Katherine made it a point to learn her way around camp, learning the names of most of the men, asking question after question so she could learn as much as she could about her husband’s work. She served the meals on time. She kept his clothes clean, and his house too. She kept her complaining to a minimum and reminded herself daily to be gracious and charming no matter how much she wanted to bring the churn down over his thick head. She was a determined woman, determined to show Alex she was the woman for him. If she couldn’t be the wife Alex wanted, she would be the one he needed.
But Alex, it seemed, didn’t need anyone, least of all her.
I might as well be a redwood. No, that’s not right. If I were a redwood, he’d notice me.
For Alex, having Katherine around left him confused and frustrated. While her presence here constantly reminded him of the mistake he had made, he couldn’t help noticing how much his life had changed, and for the better, since he had married her. He had to give Katherine credit for the many ways she had it over Karin. Alex wasn’t fool enough to think Karin would have adapted to this lumbering lifestyle as rapidly or as easily as Katherine had. Even the lumberjacks were easier to deal with since Katherine had made such an effort to call them by name and learn so much about what they did.
Day after day, he watched his wife perform acts of love for him, watched her seduce him in a hundred ways—until he was ready to toss her over his shoulder and carry her upstairs to
anybody
’s room and make love to her.
He had just decided to tell her he was through with all this nonsense and that he wanted her in his room and in his bed, when he and Adrian had to go to San Francisco. “I can’t take you with me, Katherine.”
“I understand.”
“No, I don’t think you do. It isn’t because I wouldn’t like to, but this ship is a logging ship, built to carry lumber. Adrian and I will bunk in with the crew. There isn’t a place for a woman.”
He left, promising to be back as soon as he could, no more than a week, he thought. She had walked him down to the dock to see him off, and Alex, seeing the men standing around like they expected something, realized they were waiting for him to kiss her. Alex’s face filled with indecision. Inside, deep within his heart he knew he wanted to take Katherine in his arms and kiss her like he had never kissed her before. What force prevented him from doing it? Over the past weeks he had admitted to himself time and time again that marriage to her wouldn’t be half as bad as he made it out to be. She had so many good qualities. In fact the only thing he could find wrong with her at all was that she wasn’t Karin. And even then, admitting that, he knew in all ways she was probably better.
What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I forget Karin and get on with my life ? Why can’t I love my wife?
He wanted to. And he had tried.
Only yesterday he had been returning from the higher elevations and spotted Katherine talking to one of the new hands, a young Swede who had hired on for the loneliest job of all, a windfall bucker.
Her gleaming auburn hair caught his eye as she left the cookhouse with a big ledger of some sort under her arm. The young Swede was walking toward her.
“Hello,” she said.
The Swede stopped, looking her over a couple of times like he’d never seen the likes of her before and wanted to see a whole lot more in the future. “You’re Mrs. Mackinnon, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. I thought I had met everyone here, but it looks like I missed you.”
“I’m new. Just arrived yesterday. I’m Emil Erikson.” He offered his hand and Katherine juggled with the ledger for a moment before he laughed and said, “Looks like we’ll have to shake later.”
“I’m afraid so. My hands seem to be full.”
“You keeping records?”
She laughed. “Hardly. I don’t know enough about lumbering to hold a polite conversation. And I’m afraid record keeping is far beyond my reach.”
Erikson laughed. “We all started out that way. It doesn’t take long to learn.”
“It must not. You aren’t old enough to have spent much time in the business.”
“I’m twenty-one.” He glanced down at the ledger again.
“They’re just notes. I talk to everyone around here who doesn’t see me coming first and hightails it.” She laughed. “Once I have them cornered and at my mercy, I begin asking questions until they volunteer to go out with another logging crew just to get away from me.”
“I can’t imagine anyone wanting to get away from you. You could ask me all the questions you like.”
Katherine cautioned herself. Friendliness was all right up to a point, but then it sometimes shifted to interest. She tried to cut things off before they reached that point. She shifted the ledger and started walking, hoping Emil would be on his way.
“I’m a windfall bucker. Do you have any notes about that?”
Katherine started to say she did, and thought,
What if he begins to ask questions? You could make an enemy quite easily. Take it slow, Katherine
. “No, I don’t believe I do.”
She watched his pride puff out his chest. The next minute he was giving her a full-blown lecture on what the windfall bucker did. In spite of his youthful tendency to brag a bit, she couldn’t help liking the tall blond giant. “You know what a windfall is, don’t you?”
“A tree that blows down in a storm,” she said.
“And has to be cut apart so it can be hauled away so the loggers can get to the trees they’ve chosen to cut.”
“You do that all by yourself?”
“And with the worst saws in the camp. For some unknown reason windfallers end up with what’s left in the buckers’ saw rack after everyone else has had his pick.” He laughed. “Here I am complaining already, but if I’m going to complain at all, I have to do it now. Tomorrow I’ll be too tired. I’ll be leaving with the bull of the woods in the morning.”