Riding The Whirlwind (2 page)

Thirty minutes later Paul pulled into the
drive of the old two story rented farm house. He walked into the
kitchen where his wife Sue was preparing dinner. He had the clothes
hung over his shoulder still on the hanger. He walked up behind her
and slapped her on the fanny. She turned and looked up at him
surprised; he hadn’t done that in a long time.

He smiled down at her and kissed her on the
lips. “I got a job today.”

“Ug… What in the world is that smell?”

“These. My new clothes.”

“Good grief Paul. Where on earth did you get
those things?”

“Ed Brubaker gave them to me to work in the
woods, I got a job setting chokers for Ryder logging at fourteen an
hour.”

“Oh my! Oh that’s such wonderful news honey,
an answer to prayers. Here, give them to me and I’ll wash them up,
they stink.”

Paul sat down at the kitchen table they had
gotten at a garage sale for five bucks; it was worth at least
twenty he figured. He heard the clunk of the washer lid in the wash
room which was just off the kitchen.

She came back in and sat down, pouring him a
cup of coffee out of a gold colored carafe, another garage sale
item. Sue was an avid garage sale’er, if they wanted a quarter she
paid them a dime. Where ever they landed she quickly furnished
whatever house they lived in off garage sales. She had put a
sticker on the back bumper of the Ford station wagon, ‘We brake for
garage sales’ and if she saw one she sure as hell slammed on the
brakes which resulted in numerous near misses.

Paul stared at her pretty face, remembering
when he had snagged her off a school bus line in her home town of
Modesto California, she was seventeen and he was twenty one. Her
parents threw a fit, but they were married one month later.

She sat there and turned her cup in her
hands, just staring at the coffee, “Paul, the kids love this place,
they love the schools and they love the church, we have to make a
go of it here for their sakes if not for ours.”

“Where are the kids anyhow?”

“They’re over at the Hanks house playing with
their children, listen to me Paul, God has told me we aren’t going
to move from here, the owner of this house has agreed to sell it to
us on a contract even lower than the rent payments, I signed the
papers today, but they need your signature.”

He looked at her pretty face and there were
tears in the corner of her eyes, “Sue, you know damned well God
don’t talk to people, those Pentecostals down at the church have
twisted your mind. I like them, but they got weird ways and I don’t
want you ending up like that.”

“Please watch your mouth Paul, and I’m
telling you God spoke to me. You can believe it or not, but we
aren’t moving from here Paul!”

He could sense a fight coming, so he let it
slide. He hated arguing with her, it made them both end up feeling
like stink, and besides, she always won the argument and left him
feeling like it was always his fault, no matter what the case
was.

“Ok Sue, I’ll do the best I can.”

“I know you will Paul, what’s a choker setter
anyhow?”

“They set chokers…like this!” He grabbed her
around the waist and sqweezed hard, she laughed. “Then they kiss
the tree like this!” He kissed her gently.

“I love you Sue.”

The next morning Paul arrived at the Ryder
logging truck yard at 3:30, he yawned in the cold air and rubbed
his hands together to warm them.

Eight men were gathered in front of Ryder’s
Office when he walked up swinging his lunch pail.

Ryder greeted him, introduced him and spat a
stream of tobacco juice hitting him on his shoe, “This here is
Paul, the new choker setter, you guys are going to have to train
him, and if I hear of any of you harassing him instead of training
him, I’ll fire you and give him your job, is that clear?”

The men nodded their heads staring at Paul,
sizing him up, “Why couldn’t you find an experienced hand Bill, you
got to go robbing the cradle for hands these days?”

“Shut up Carl and you rascals get the hell
out of here and get on up there and get me some logs.”

He turned around, climbed the steps of the
trailer and slammed the door making the whole trailer vibrate.

“The boss is in a good mood as usual. Lets go
boys. You come with me Paul.” The crew leader turned to his pickup
and the men piled onto another pickup.

Paul got in the warm cab with the crew
leader, “My name is Hardy Johnson, you listen to me and me only,
I’ll make a choker setter out of you, if you work hard, we’ll get
along, if you sluff off, I’ll send you back, is that clear?”

“Yes sir, it is.”

“Just call me Hardy, I’m a working man.”

Paul was silent as the truck came to the turn
off where they entered a log road. An iron gate barred the road,
and the crew leader slid the pickup in front of the gate, jumped
out and unlocked it and swung it open, the other pickup followed
them through.

It was just getting light when they rolled up
to a yarder machine standing squat at the edge of a steep mountain
side, it’s crane lifted in the morning air. The gravel crunched as
the other pick up pulled in behind them.

The men grabbed chain saws off the back of
the pickup and with lunch bucket in one hand and a chain saw in the
other, they walked down to the yarder.

The crew leader looked at Paul, “Bob here is
the yarder operator, he can’t see directly below the yarder, so the
first thing you got to learn is to stay clear of this machine. When
it turns it turns fast and it’ll eat you alive boy. Is that
clear?”

Paul looked up at the machine and shook his
head, “Now Carl there will take you down and show you how to set a
few chokers, it ain’t rocket science, so the main thing you have to
learn is to set the choker and get clear of it, and the yarder will
drag the trees up the hill. Got that?” Paul shook his head
again.

“Ok Carl, take him on down there and set a
few with him, then let him have at it. Lets get the job done.”

Carl didn’t seem any too happy, but he said
nothing as they left the grade and went down the steep mountain
side to where a tangle of trees and stumps lay in the early morning
shadows.

Paul heard the diesel engines starter wine
and then awake with a chuff as he worked his way through the tangle
of brush behind Carl. A few minutes later he was sweating as Carl
showed him how to wrap the thick steel cables around the trees a
few feet back from the ends and hook it.

After a few chokes were set Carl looked at
him and spat at a tree, “Now you try it by yourself.”

His muscles strained as he yanked at the
heavy steal cable of the choker and wrapped it around two trees and
hooked the eye of the cable.

“Now get clear, get clear.”

He jumped back, falling over another log
behind him and head first down in the brush. The yarder yanked on
the trees and they started on their way up the hill.

Carl laughed, “I forgot to tell you to look
behind you.” As Paul scrabbled upright hanging onto a tree limb, a
fresh cut on his faces where a broken tree branch had dug into his
skin.

“You got to look where ever you’re going down
here boy and don’t you forget it.”

By the time the day was through every muscle
in his body ached and he wondered if he would last another day.

He went to bed that night at six, waking up
at nine with pain racking his joints.

The next morning as they gathered round at
the front of the trailer Bill Ryder came out with his coffee cup in
his hand, “We done pretty good yesterday having a new choker
setter, but we need to do better today. How do you feel Paul?”

“I feel like I been kicked and stomped, but
I’m here.”

“He’s a real hoot owl’er now Bill. Hell, he
beat Carl at settin’ chokers. We got us a real wall banger.” The
men laughed.

“Shut up Fred, and you characters get on outa
my sight! Now git!”

“If it wasn’t for his personality he’d be a
real ladies man.”

“Ok, cut the crap and lets go!” the crew
leader turned toward his truck, he looked at Paul, “Don’t forget
yer nose bag hoss, yer gonna to need to eat before the day is
through.”

Paul ran back to his car to get his lunch
bucket and thermos, he had instructed Sue to put more food in, he
cursed himself for almost leaving it behind.

The crew leader slid to a stop just as he was
shutting the door to the car, “Get in here stud and lets get
moving.” He opened the door of the pickup and jumped in the already
moving vehicle.

Three days later he his muscles began to
adapt themselves to the work and three weeks later he was getting
nimble at walking the felled logs and fastening the sliding bell
hook.

The crew leader watched him with approval
from the landing, Paul was making a good choker setter.

Part two

Sue Gilford had been worried about her
husband for some time, he spent too much time dwelling on what
should have been, not what was.

The night he had come home with his best and
only decent suit torn, his chest bleeding it had taken her three
days of patient coaxing to get it out of him, finally with much
effort, she had gotten it out of him that he had wanted to commit
suicide. That was the night he had gone to the sales meeting in
Astoria. She knew at the outset that there was not enough in the
program to make a living, but she hadn’t dared say so because he
had already been out of work for so long, so she had resorted to
prayer for her husband and family instead.

The evening of the sales meeting she had felt
a great burden to pray so she prayed until she felt release. Then
when he told her, she knew what it was about. She knew in her heart
that if she hadn’t been obedient to pray, her husband would be
dead. She knew her husband well enough to know if he made up his
mind to do something it would be done. She had let out a sigh of
relief knowing she and her family was tucked into the hands of her
Lord and savior.

She knew the reason Paul was the way he was,
he was wounded and bent from his childhood, he tried to hold down a
steady job, but something drove him.

She supposed he was trying to measure up to
his Dad even though his Dad had passed away. Paul had spent a
lifetime feeling unloved, and that was the problem, but she felt
like she had gone the last mile she could go, if he didn’t sign the
papers to the house, then she would do it alone and if he wanted to
move on, he would have to go it alone.

She was startled out of her reverie when she
heard someone knocking at the door, it was her Pastor.

She loved the fact that their Pastor was a
woman. Few churches had women for Pastors, but this one did, the
Pastor had died and this woman had been the only one who would
tackle such a small church in such a small community, so in spite
of the objections by some on the church board, she had stayed.

“Oh, its you Pastor, please come sit down, I
have some coffee on.”

“Thank you, I believe I will have a cup on
such a gray day.”

The Pastor was a graying woman of 62 years
old who loved God and her flock, she had visited the new ones to
the flock two or three times since they moved into the old Harold
place a couple of miles down the road from where she lived.

“We don’t have too many days that are not
gray in this part of Oregon, but its coming on summer and then we
have the most beautiful weather you have ever seen.”

“I hope so Pastor, the rain has been getting
to me.”

“You have to just pay it no mind dear; if you
do it will drive you batty.”

“I suppose, what brings you out today?”

“Oh, I just felt to check up on you. I heard
Paul got work for Mr. Ryder and I wanted to see if there was
anything I could do for you two.”

The Pastor sipped her coffee and thought for
a minute her brow furrowing.

“Could I ask a personal question dear?”

“Sure if I don’t want to talk about it, I’ll
say so, go ahead.”

“Your husband seems indifferent at times;
could you tell me why you came to Mist?”

“We were living in Idaho, and Paul spotted
this place on a map and said that’s were we are going.”

“Just like that?”

“We’ve been in 36 states just like that.”

“I see. Why do you suppose that is?”

“Paul had a very rough childhood, he knew
nothing but beatings and kicking’s from the time he was little. He
has fallen through every crack there is to fall through.”

“And how have you dealt with it?”

“ One day at a time, I know God will reach
Paul in his own good time.”

“You have a strong faith child.”

“If it wasn’t for my faith, I couldn’t have
dealt with it, but Pastor, I can’t move any more, this is it for
me.”

“Well, we’ll pray that he can keep his job
and moving won’t be needed.”

“Pastor, I’m sorry for Pauls rough way of
talking. It must offend you to hear that.”