Bonner Incident (3 page)

William was much surer of himself this time and was quicker as they readied the trailer to be loaded. When the trailer was ready, Joshua headed to the first log truck William had loaded. Climbing in, he turned and gave William a thumb up to start loading the second trailer. Pulling out of the loading area, Joshua stopped by the Hahn processor and started it up. Of everything on the site, the processor was by far the most expensive. Joshua had got this one used and still had spent almost half a million.

Heading over to the first trailer, Joshua pulled out the binder and wrappers and started binding down the load. As he was locking down the last binder, he noticed headlights shining over at the loading area. Turning around, he saw the other two company trucks pulling in and parking beside his truck.

All four doors opened on each truck and his crew stepped out. Lifting his arm and pulling the cuff of his glove down he saw it was fifteen till six. “One day, they’re going to be late,” he mumbled but didn’t really believe it. Joshua treated his employees well and they returned it.

As they pulled out gear, putting it on, Joshua finished wrapping the load down. “Hey William, throw me the load ticket book and paint on your right side,” Joshua called over the radio. William grabbed the items and opened the door and tossed them over to his dad.

Opening the book, Joshua sighed as he filled out a ticket for each load. Ripping off the tickets, he stapled them to the left rear bunk log, the long bottom log on the trailer, and painted the sale name and ticket number on it. Closing the ticket book, Joshua said a thankful prayer that he didn’t have to brand stamp each log on this sale.

When he was done, he headed toward the loader which was sitting idle now with the second trailer loaded. Glancing at the crew also heading to the loader, it wasn’t hard to notice which outline belonged to Ben. Ben was only five and a half feet tall but had eighteen-inch arms with a barrel chest and no neck.

When William climbed out of the loader, the crew let out whooping cheers. “The little boss is stepping up!” Ben yelled.

When William jumped down from the loader, Joshua laughed as the crew walked up and began patting William’s back. Gene, the oldest member of the crew and ten years’ senior to Joshua, grabbed William by the shoulder. “Turning into a logger, young man,” he said.

“Hell yeah,” Ben shouted. “Pull it out William, and drag it around in the snow like a real logger does.”

Shaking his head, Gene, the oldest, therefore the father of the crew, stepped up to Ben and spoke in a low voice. “You may be a badass kung fu fighter Ben, but he’s only thirteen for Christ sakes. Mind your manners, at least keeping it civil. If Sonya heard you talk to William like that, she’d snatch that red goatee off and hang it from her rear-view mirror.”

Lowering his head, “Yeah, sorry, William,” Ben mumbled. “Gene, it’s MMA; mixed martial arts, not kung fu.”

Loving the attention, William just grinned as Joshua held out his hand for everyone to quiet down. “Thanks guys,” William said looking around at the group.

“Alright guys, we need assholes and elbows. You can see the snow is slushing out, so we need to be done quickly,” Joshua said looking around as Ben reached over and patted William’s back.

“Boss,” Ben said taking off his blue hard hat and tying a bandana over his shaved head. “It’s Monday. We’ll be finished with timber by next Monday, and clean up by the end of next week.”

Nodding, Joshua looked around at everyone else wearing their orange hard hats. New Forestry regulations dictated owners, foremen and workers had to wear different colored hats for identification. Joshua thought it was to make a caste system. Everyone in his group could do any job on the site and all of them had CDL’s to drive the semis. “I know, but let’s not get slack-assed here and get done, so we can pull the equipment back to the shop before we head to Washington.”

“Hold on boss,” Ben said putting his hardhat back on. “I know little boss here only has today off from school and I don’t think he needs to set chokers. William set those chokers and they weigh almost as much as him. He helped run the dozer when we cut that road in before Christmas at our last job. I think it’s time for him to be foreman for the day.”

Ben took off William’s orange hardhat and put his own blue one on him. “I think he needs to run the site today.”

William looked at Ben with wide eyes as the rest of the crew agreed. “Son, you ready to step up?” Joshua asked.

“I don’t want to mess up Dad,” William said looking around, proud the guys thought that much of him.

Ben patted his back, “William, loggers don’t mess up,” he said. “If something goes wrong, the world messed up, we didn’t.”

Nodding but still afraid, William leaned over to Ben. “You will stay close, won’t you,” he whispered.

“Hell yeah,” Ben said turning to Joshua. “How about it, boss?”

Grinning, Joshua nodded. “Men, meet William, the foreman for today.” They all gave a cheer and William adjusted the blue helmet on his head. “What are assignments for today?”

“Um, well,” William said looking around with his face getting red, and it wasn’t from the chill in the air. “Gene, you’re on the Hahn. Donnie, Alex, and Chris, you’re cutting. Frank, you’re skidding. Kyle, and Robert, you’re on the log trucks. I’m on the crawler, and Ben, you’re setting chokers for me. Dad, you’re running the loader.”

Joshua raised his eyebrows, impressed with the assignments. Everyone could do any of it, but they always tried to rotate everyone and with William’s assignments, he had, but he’d also put everyone in their strongest area. “Sounds good,” Joshua said and everyone moved off, grabbing what they needed.

Since the loading was done, Joshua moved around the site helping until the trucks showed up again to be loaded. He had two trucks running logs to the mill just over fifty miles away, but the mill wanted logs so badly they were sending at least four of their own trucks a day. Joshua didn’t give a shit because he didn’t have to pay them and the mill wasn’t even taking it out of his price. Normally, the mills would be buried under in logs but lately, it was getting harder and harder to fill their yards. Now, they took timber wherever they could get it.

Joshua followed Ben and William uphill after nose-bag time to help pull the winchline up an extra steep slope. Looking back Joshua grinned, very pleased at how well William handled the dozer. Slowly, William backed it up the steep slope to where the winchline could be pulled to reach the turn of pre-set chokers. As they caught their breath from the hard pull, Ben turned and said, “You gotta be proud of your boy. Must be genetic.”

Before Joshua could answer, the radio went off. “Looks like we have company,” Frank called over the radio.

Joshua turned around and saw the Forestry Badge on the door of the SUV as it pulled to a stop. Grabbing the microphone on his chest, “Who the hell is that? It’s not Norman,” he called out running down the steep slope past William on the dozer.

“Hell, I’ve never seen any of the Forestry Rangers or supervisors around here driving an SUV. They drive pickup trucks,” Ben called back.

“I don’t know who they are,” Frank said as he dropped his load of logs at the landing. “There’re two of them.”

“Fuck!” Joshua shouted seeing his empty log trucks pull back in. Joshua eyed the large pile of logs sitting at the end of the Hahn, ‘it’s gonna be balls to the wall cleaning them up and loading out the round’, he thought grabbing his radio. “I’m loading, so keep an eye out for them,” he said trotting over to the loader as one of the log trucks pulled up to the loading area. As he climbed up on the loader, Joshua saw both of the Forestry men had on gun belts. “What the hell is the enforcement division out here for?”

The USDA Forestry service had its own law enforcement division and even its own SWAT teams. But for the life of him, Joshua couldn’t figure out why they would even need one SWAT team much less several. Knowing trucks had to be loaded, Joshua climbed in the loader and started loading his trucks.

When he started on the second truck, his radio went off again. “Another SUV,” Ben called out and Joshua glanced out of the loader to see another Forestry Service SUV park by the first. Shaking his head while looking at the man, Joshua didn’t know him but could tell by the badge and lapel, he was the regional forester for district one, the district they were in. The regional forester reported directly to the chief in Washington D.C. The fact that Joshua had never seen one in the field did make him a little nervous.

With two enforcement officers with the supervisor, Joshua was tempted to tell everyone to load up the equipment and head home. “Hey boss,” Ben called over the radio. “Is it my imagination or is that last one the regional forester?”

“Yep,” Joshua said as he continued loading the second truck.

“Hell, the only time I’ve seen a regional forester was on TV talking bullshit,” Ben called back. “The only time we dealt with enforcement was when those Echo terrorists shot at us in Washington State two years ago.”

“Well Ben, they wouldn’t have come to see us if you hadn’t taken the skidder down to their camp and run over their Prius,” Gene shouted back.

“Fuck you, they shot at us!” Ben bellowed and Joshua laughed remembering the event as he loaded the truck.

“Those pansy asses couldn’t even hit the bulldozer they were aiming at,” Gene shouted back.

“Yeah, but I hit their little car with that skidder, didn’t I?” Ben chortled.

“Ah, boss,” William came over the radio. “Um, they can’t come near the landing unless they have hardhats. You said nobody could ever.”

“I told you heathens he was an old time logger!” Ben shouted over the radio and Joshua laughed at Ben and was proud of William.

Joshua grabbed his microphone. “That’s correct foreman,” Joshua said as he finished loading the truck. Shutting down the loader, he climbed out to see the three men walking toward him. “Hold up gentlemen. This is a logging operation in a forestry service timber sale area and during operation, everyone must wear an OSHA-approved hardhat and logging boots.”

The three men stopped and looked at each other, talking quietly as Joshua continued toward them. Three years ago, he had been fined because his crew was sitting in the landing eating lunch and everyone had taken off their hardhats. That had cost him five hundred dollars for each person and another grand because Chris didn’t have his chainsaw chaps on and he was assigned to cutting. So after paying fifty-five hundred dollars for a regulation that he had never heard of, Joshua went and found it.

OSHA had passed a regulation on what had to be worn in a US Forest on a logging operation. What had surprised Joshua was that the Forestry Service or OSHA could fine someone who was cutting firewood if they didn’t wear the proper gear in a US Forest.

When Joshua stopped a few feet from them, the regional forester turned to him. “I’m Ronald Gifford, Northern Region forester,” he said but didn’t hold out his hand.

“Joshua Anderson,” Joshua said with a nod. Be damned if he was holding out his hand when Ronald didn’t. “How can I help you?”

“I’m just checking on my area,” Ronald said with a grin. “I have nine thousand employees under me with over twenty-five million acres of forest to look after, and want to make sure my officers and rangers are doing their jobs. So I came out here to inspect the sale area, just to make sure my forestry rangers are doing their jobs, of course.”

“That’s fine, Ronald,” Joshua said and Ronald raised his hand.

“I’m Ronald Gifford, region one forester,” he said with a scowl. “You may call me ‘Northern Regional Director, Region one Director, or Mr. Gifford. Are we clear, Joshua?”

Swallowing a dozen retorts, and all but one was very rude, Joshua nodded. “Crystal clear, Ronald.” Ronald sucked in a breath as his cheeks turned red. “Like I said, under your rules, nobody can come on this site without a hardhat and logging boots at the minimum.”

One of the officers turned to Ronald. “He’s right sir.” Joshua looked at the two officers and noticed that both were wearing captain bars on the shoulders of their jackets. “We have some in the rig,” he said walking away.

“You need to learn your place, gypo,” Ronald said glaring at him. Gypo was a derogatory name for independent loggers but was worn with pride by independent loggers.

“Ronald, I took this job because Charlie begged me to. In case you don’t know, Charlie Verner is the ranger over this district. Not one outfit put a bid in for this sale. Charlie came to me begging me to take it because there was some plan for this area,” Joshua said fighting to keep his voice even.

“I’m well aware Joshua,” Ronald said. “We are destroying the road, putting a hiking trail here and this area will be turned into a summer camping area on the Rocky Mountain Trail System.”

“Well, I’m happy for you then,” Joshua said as the other officer came back carrying three hardhats.

Ronald snatched one putting it on. “I have my hardhat.”

“Hey, it’s your rules, not mine. I was fined three years ago for it because we were eating lunch without our hardhats on,” Joshua said. “If you need me, you can find me by my white hardhat, from the rule you passed two years ago that owners must wear white hardhats.”

When he walked away, the three circled up whispering. “What the fuck is he talking about colored hardhats?” he heard Ronald whisper to the officers.

Grabbing his microphone, Joshua keyed it. “Forestry Service is inspecting the site so all vehicles, watch your ground. I don’t think any of these guys have ever been on a logging sale site.”