Sometimes a Great Notion (63 page)

“Or,” Draeger offered, “we’ll buy the operation from you outright.”

“Who? The union?”

“And some of the citizens of the town.”

“Fancy that. But the thing is, Mr. Draeger—an’ Floyd, you know this—I can’t possibly do such a thing. It ain’t all mine to sell. It belongs to a good many of us.”

Evenwrite started to answer but Draeger interrupted. “Hank, think of this.” Draeger’s voice was sterile, carrying neither veiled threat nor solicitous entreaty: Evenwrite noticed that Hank was watching the man closely. “A good many people in town are dependent on that mill reopening.”

“Yeah!” Evenwrite came back. “So like I started to say, I know you can’t possibly
not
do such a thing, Hank, not and still call yourself a Christian. There is an entire town off there depending on you. An
en-tire
town, your home town, the fellows you grew up with, played ball with . . . an’ their wives an’ kids! Hank, I
know
you, boy; this is ol’ Floyd, remember? I know you ain’t one of the lard-butts in Frisco or LA, bloodsucking your fellow man. I know you can’t allow that town of men, women, and children to go hungry all winter to line your pocket.”

Hank dropped his eyes, amused and a little embarrassed by Evenwrite’s rhetoric. But he shook his head, smiling and shrugging. “They won’t starve, Floyd. Some of ’em might miss a couple payments on their TV or—”

“Goddam your soul, Stamper—!” Evenwrite pushed in between Draeger and Hank. “You can see what a bind we’re in. And we ain’t about to let you keep us eatin’ dirt.”

“Floyd, I just don’t know.” Hank continued to shake his head, looking down at the dangling ends of wire where he’d been wrapping the timber. One of his fingers was bleeding slowly down his arm. “I don’t see what I can do. I’m in a bind too. Our whole business, the whole shebang, is tied up in those booms up at our mill.”

“Hank, could you hold off and sell later?” Draeger asked. “Just until the strike was settled?” Truly an odd voice, Evenwrite had to admit, something about it pure and tasteless, like eating snow or drinking rainwater. . . .

“No, Mr. Draeger, I couldn’t; didn’t Floyd here show you all that research he did? I’m over a barrel myself. The contract reads delivery by Thanksgiving; we get them logs down by Thanksgiving or the deal is void. We break terms and the price is throwed open. They could pay us what they please. Wouldn’t even have to pay us at all if they wanted to be ornery about it—could just sue for fraud an’ take the logs.”

“They couldn’t take your booms! You know damn well—”

“They might, Floyd.”

“No judge and jury would find for ’em!”

“They might. You can’t tell. And even if they didn’t, what am I going to do with twenty acres of logs floating on the river? Our little craphouse mill couldn’t handle a quarter of ’em, working night and day all winter . . . even it did we might not be able to market the lumber if we did get it cut.”

“You could market it.” Floyd was sure.

“How? The big companies got all the construction contracts already sewed up tight.”

“Hell, Hank, use your damned head.” Evenwrite was charged with sudden enthusiasm. “You could sell to the outfits Wakonda Pacific was planning to sell to. You get it? Sure. Them outfits’ll need buildin’ material come spring, and man, look,
there’s
where you clean up! You cut out WP and since they don’t have the wood they can’t meet their contract and
you
sell to the contractors for
twice the profit!
Hey boy, there we go.” He turned to Draeger, smiling triumphantly. “What you think of that, Jonny? There’s our answer. Hell, now, why didn’t I think of that before? Why didn’t I
think
of it?”

Draeger chose to let the question pass, but Hank’s face came up from examining his cut finger and he regarded Evenwrite’s enthusiastic features with obvious amusement. “Probably, I’d say, Floyd, you didn’t think of it for the same reason that you didn’t just now think that if I let WP go back to work then they’ll be able to supply their contracts themselves.”

“What?”

“Look, Floyd. The reason you
don’t
want me to sell to WP is so
they’ll
go back to work and cut their
own
logs. Right? And mill their
own
lumber? To meet their
own
contracts?”

“I don’t see . . .” Evenwrite furrowed his brow and a rivulet of water shot down the furrow and off his nose.

“It’s like this, Floyd.” Hank tried again, patiently. “I can’t sell to contractors that WP failed to fill contracts for if you guys go back to work and—”

“Oh man, don’t you
see
, Floyd?” The material was too rich for Joe Ben to stay out of. He popped into the circle of light, his eyes blinking glee. “Don’t you see? Oh yeah. See. If
we
break our contract so
you
get
your
contract then
they
can meet
their
contracts with the contractors that
you
are saying
we
can contract to if we—”

“What? Wait a minute—”

Hank was trying to keep his amusement from becoming even more obvious. “Joe Ben means, Floyd, that if
we
let
you
guys go back to work we’re eliminating our market.”

“Yeah, Floyd, see? Oh, I admit it’s deep. If
we
let
you
cut
their
lumber, then
our
lumber
we
aim to sell to
them
. . .” He took another breath and tried to start anew but gave way to a snorting explosion of laughter instead.

“Screw all this,” Floyd growled.

“. . . or if
we
let
you
keep
our
lumber”—this was the sort of material that could keep Joe going for days—“from becoming
their
lumber so
your
lumber can become
their
lumber—”

“Screw it.” Floyd hunched his shoulders against the lantern light and clamped his jaw. “Just screw it, Joe Ben.”

“You can always sell lumber,” Draeger said simply.

“That’s right!” Evenwrite saw an opportunity to regain lost ground. He took Hank by the arm. “That’s why I say screw all this bull. You can
always
sell lumber.”

“Maybe . . .”

“Goddam you now, Hank, be reasonable. . . .” He drew a deep breath in preparation for another assault on Hank’s stubbornness, but Draeger cut in abruptly. “What are we to tell the people in town?”

Hank turned from Evenwrite; something in the tone of Draeger’s question stripped the situation of humor. “What are you gonna
what?
”

“What are we to tell the people in town?” Draeger asked again.

“Why, I don’t care
what
you tell them. I don’t see—”

“Are you aware, Hank, that Wakonda Pacific is owned by a firm in San Francisco? Are you aware that last year a net of nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars left your community?”

“I don’t see what skin that is—”

“These are your friends, Hank, your associates and neighbors. Floyd tells me that you served in Korea.” Draeger’s voice was placid . . . “Do you ever think that the same loyalty that your country expected of you overseas could be expected of you here at home? Loyalty to friends and neighbors when they are being threatened by a foreign foe? Loyalty to—?”

“Loyalty, for the chrissake . . .
loyalty?
”

“That’s right, Hank. I think you know what I’m talking about.” The soothing patience of the voice was almost mesmerizing, “I’m speaking of the
basic
loyalty, the
true
patriotism, the selfless, openhearted, humane
concern
that you always find welling up from someplace within you—a concern you might have almost forgotten—when you see a fellow human being in need of your help. . . .”

“Listen . . . listen to me, Mister.” Hank’s voice was taut. He pushed past Evenwrite and held his lantern close to Draeger’s neat-featured face. “I’m just as concerned as the next guy, just as loyal. If we was to get into it with Russia I’d fight for us right down to the wire. And if Oregon was to get into it with California I’d fight for Oregon. But if somebody—Biggy Newton or the Woodsworker’s Union or anybody—gets into it with
me
, then I’m for
me!
When the chips are down, I’m my own patriot. I don’t give a goddam the other guy is my own
brother
wavin’ the
American
flag and singing the friggin’ ‘Star Spangled Banner’!”

Draeger smiled sadly. “And what of self-sacrifice, the true test of any patriot? If you really believed what you say about yourself, Hank, you would be in for some pretty shallow patriotism, some pretty selfish loyalty—”

“Call it whatever you want, that’s the way I intend to play it. You can tell my good friends and neighbors Hank Stamper is heartless as a stone if you want. You can tell them I care just as much about them as they did about me layin’ on the barroom floor last night.”

The two men held each other’s eyes. “We could tell them that,” Draeger said, still smiling sadly at Hank, “but we both know it would be a lie.”

“Yeah, a
lie!
” Evenwrite burst out of his angry reverie. “Because, goddammit, you can
always
sell lumber!”

“Christ Almighty, yes, Floyd!” Hank turned on Evenwrite, relieved in a way to have someone to shout at again. “Sure I can sell lumber. But wake up and die right! use your damn head! Look!” He grabbed the flashlight from the still laughing Joe Ben and shone it down at the surging river; the black water eddied about the beam of light as though it were a solid pole. “Look at that push down there! Look! After just one day of rain! You think I can wrestle those booms of mine through a winter of
this
? I’ll tell you something, Floyd, old buddy, to make your trip worth while. Something to make your damn constipated heart burst out singing. We just might not
make
that deadline, you ever think of that? We still got another half-boom to fill out before we make our run. Another three weeks, and some of it the shittiest type logging in the world; we go up in the state park to finish off with. Steep logging, goddamn
hand
-logging! just like they did sixty or seventy years ago, because the State won’t let us bring cats and donkeys in for fear we might skin up some of the goddamn mountain
greenery.
Three weeks of flooding and primitive logging, an’ we’re liable to fall short. But we’re gonna work our asses at it, ain’t we Joby? And you boys are welcome to stand there and talk about men, women, and children, friends and neighbors and loyalty and that crap till the cows come home, stand there and talk about how they are gonna lose their TV sets this winter, and how the poor folks got to eat . . . but goddammit I can tell you this, that if
they
eat it’s gonna be for some reason other’n me, or Joe Ben or the rest, some reason other’n us playin’ Santa Claus! Because I don’t give a
goddamn!
for my friends and neighbors in town yonder; no more than they give a damn about me.” He stopped. A cut on his lip had reopened, and he licked at it gingerly. For a second, in the circle of the lantern’s saffron light, the men waited. No one looking at the others.

Then Draeger said, “Let’s go” and Floyd Evenwrite said, “Yeah, back where there’s still some brotherhood in this world,” and they picked their way in the dark back along the plank. Behind them Evenwrite heard a choking laugh start up again—“Break our contract to meet
your
contract so we can sell”—and heard Hank join in the laughter. “The toplofty cock-sucker,” he said. “He don’t know it yet, but he’s real due to be brought down a few pegs.”

“Uhuh,” Draeger agreed, but his thoughts were obviously elsewhere.

At the boat Evenwrite snapped his fingers. “Damn. We should’ve asked him—” Then stopped cold. “No, no, I’m god-dammed if I will.”

“Should have asked him what, Floyd?”

“Never mind. Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Draeger seemed amused and in even better spirits than before they had made this dumb-ass trip. “Ask him nothing?”

“I
guess
nothing. I knew better. I knew it was like talkin’ to a signpost. We shouldn’t of come. We should of knew better. That’s
exactly
correct: we should of asked him
nothing.
”

Evenwrite untied the back rope with blind, frozen fingers and climbed into the launch. “Darn,” he muttered to himself, feeling his way to the back of the boat. “I should of asked him anyway; he couldn’t of said more than no. And he
might
of come through, just out of contrariness. Then at least the trip wouldn’t been a
complete
goose-egg. . . .”

Draeger returned to his seat in the front of the boat. “The trip wasn’t a goose-egg, Floyd,” he mused aloud, “not a goose-egg by any means.” Then, as an afterthought: “Should have asked them what?”

Evenwrite gave the motor rope a furious yank. “For
smokes!
We should have asked him for smokes is what.”

He got the motor started and swung the little running light away from the dark into the murky fume of rain, turning down river, he realized with a groan, just in time to buck the incoming tide.

 

By the time Teddy saw Evenwrite and Draeger crossing the street back to the Snag, all the other men had gone home. From his lair of colored light near the front window he watched the way the two men moved after they entered the bar, studying them with veiled intensity:
Floyd is uncomfortable.
Evenwrite examined the wet ruin of his clothes with irritated and jerky pluckings.
He is changed some since he came out of the woods and into the white-collar world
, like a molting chicken that longed terribly to pluck at the annoying itch of its feathers, yet feared just as much to be naked.
Floyd used to come in from work like the animal he is, wet and weary and not worried about it; a stupid animal, but a comfortable one
. . . He finally sighed and loosened his belt so he could sit without having his wet slacks cut him in half . . .
Now he is just stupid. And scared. Floyd has added to the normal fear of the dark a worse fear: the fear of falling.
After folding his pudgy hands across his stomach to try to conceal the bulge that had been building steadily since he had been voted into that white-collar world, Evenwrite sighed again with discomfort and disgust, and frowned across the table, where Draeger was still carefully hanging his overcoat. “All right, now, Jonathan . . .
all
right.”
And worst of all, he is too stupid to know he isn’t high enough to fall very far.