packwood

"Packwood
by Robert Iddings

I've seen black smoke trucks streaming dust behind thick enough to plug the nose and throat; nine wheels flattened on the curve, brakes sparking, pulling off that mountain with logs straining at the chains, bark flying loose to the ground. I've seen tourists take the ditch in their camping cars (they'd been warned) not believing there was any danger 'til one big, crudded grill poked round the downhill curve at fifty plus rolling home.

Yep! I've seen it. Heck I've lived it. Started when I was just a kid. Started out there before I was supposed to go to work. Saw the "spartree bend, on that first day, heard it groan, while the new oil-covered "yarder tightened up the lines. Heard the ping, ping, pinginging, as strands on a guywire snapped loose. Smelled burning pistons pumping out a diesel's waste. Stood there, watching all the time out of the corner of my wide eyes for a place to run if the top of the tree, bull-block and all, came smashing down. Just a kid, in love with the smells and sounds and wondrous power of it all.

Now it's old to me because I'm old, but the "haulback streaming a mile a minute down towards the standing trees at the edge of the clear-cut, a thousand yards out, "mainline joined to it by a swiveled "butt-rigging, the size of a phone booth, "chokers dangling, whipping on the way, ninety feet in the air dancing, swaying; then the whistle and the screeching brakes, that still excites me. And the dangerous dance now started, rigging crew running in, four old men, leaping, each fool hoping to beat the others, hustling, jumping at the swinging "chokers, still captivates my attention. Like bull-ropers in a rodeo, only wrestling lines of stranded wire thicker than most arms, blowing holes under jammed up logs to wrap a "choker around one big enough to build a house. Grabbing, snapping, running and the whistle, "Everybody out? Four men scrambling to stay alive as logs the size of boxcars jerk up and out, limbs and dirt flying up, up and then down. Logs carving furrows in the gray dirt as the turning drum of the "yarder draws them up and in, cables crashing straining, men running over fallen logs, hoping to get out of the way. Some don't.

Then, in the summer's heat, a breathless running to catch a quick drink of water, "noseeums swarming, biting, stinging in the shade. Up the hill and back, out and down, then back up, in then out, running up then down. Through the piles of limbs, hidden holes between logs, hornets, yellow jackets. Over one log, slipping on the loose bark crashing to the log below, ribs aching, bloody arms and chest. Torn shirt costing two hours wage.

On the landing, a thousand yards away, skinny kid chopping, sizing, sorting, marking, and the steam shovel picking logs up like pencils on a desk moving them here, then there. Trucks backing down into the mud hole, straining under the added weight, two, three logs, maybe six to a truck, sometimes more, now straining up the hill, tires smoking, screeching, driver's swearing at the Loader, sweat-caked faces anger-twisted and then over the hump and off and down to Tacoma, maybe one more run today, if they make it.

They called it "hoot-owling in the summers, four o'clock breakfast, catching a ride with Everet who hasn't showered all summer long, maybe never. Eight men in a "crummy crew bus, snoring, spitting, stinking, riding up the mountain in the dark and then home in the afternoon's heat and the windows won't open. Then getting out of the bus in front of the company yard to face a dozen straight-haired, skinny rich kids from Oregon protecting Washington's forests by cursing men they don't know, and wouldn't like if they did.

Falling into bed so tired there's no thought of eating, no desire to sit on the porch and watch the moon come up behind Tatoosh. Please, come sleep, sleep, please come. Hot, rolling, tossing night, up and down, sweat stained sheets that haven't been washed in a week, three cold showers and sleep comes when the night air cools. Three hours of sleep then Friday, eggs and coffee.

The skinny kids aren't in front of the driveway at five in the morning, they never are, it's far too early to save the world. Just eight, sleep starved men, irritable, bleary-eyed, breathing in the last cigarette in the cool of the morning's breeze. Fir and Hemlock the only perfume of the morning. The "Hooker pulls up in his ex-wife's pickup, the bus fires up, time to go. Let the kid drive. No one argues except the kid. Everybody else gets an extra hour's sleep.

Friday, twenty loads today, maybe, no one cares. Too tired to care, too tired to work. Heat and dust, aches and bruises, broken shoe string and the runs, and then thank God the fat old man on the yarder's jammed a log up against a stump. "Didn't hear the whistle, someone says, "pulled the gears outa the drum, line's all tangled.

Riggin' crew spreads out quick to the shade, trying to hide, dozing between logs, but Hooker's been 'round longer than any of 'em, finds them easy and chases the lazy lot out to dig firetrails, "I expect we'll be down most the morning, parts are on the way. But the crew's been through it before, they know it'll be a lazy, wasted day.

Thank God. Digging in the dirt, cutting through roots and rocks is better than chasing chokers. It's going to be a good Friday after all, maybe they'll go on up Rainier tonight to the Lodge, maybe dance, flirt with the college girls who work up there in the summers, sit in the lounge and drink Tangeray Martinis pretending to be tourists. Tourists with hands torn red, faces black with sunburn, tourists with rough scars dressed in new shirts and English Leather. And the college girls will despise them because they're just "loggers, but there aren't that many good looking guys tonight and so the girls will eventually come over.

The whistle calls them in, too late to fire up the yarder it's time to go home. "Don't come to work Monday, we'll be down till Tuesday, Hooker says.

There's no talking on the way home now. A day of lost wages is a heap of money, more than most shop keepers and delivery men make in a week, but then car payments and rent are due, meals in the restaurant aren't cheap, the season's short enough without losing another day. Everet's the only one who doesn't mind since he works year round, even in the snow, maintenance men keep busy, there'll be a lot of work on the yarder this winter. Some of the lines won't last another season, they'll need replacement. Cables to be spliced, engines to be tuned, Everet doesn't mind, he'll be busy when the rest are eatin' unemployment.

Yep! I've been there, riding the Crummy down off the mountain so fast you couldn't see outside. Couldn't see that the mountain looked like a quilt on this side, patches of slashed and burnt timber left over from years and years of harvest. Patches that would take a century to grow back. No one ever seemed to care in those days, it was the money we all know that now; greed and ignorance hand in hand.

Doesn't seem to matter much now that I'm old; it's all changed now, started years ago. Don't see any more "highleaders on the mountain. New metal spars, mounted on the trucks of Seattle companies, took over. Their Cat logging's done away with the big crews. Gypos are where it's at now, one or two men stripping what they can from some small auctioned timber sale. They won't slash the land in clearcuts, that's true, but they won't love it either, not like us, not like those of us who've got our blood mixed into the heart of every log taken off that mountain.

I was born when my family was still draggin' trees out of this forest on oxen pulled sledges, dragging them by sheer will power, on spit and brute force down the Cowlitz to where they would be floated down the Columbia to the mills in Portland and Longview. A hundred years ago, young men, hard men, strong men, men who knew no better work, fell and cut and pulled these same trees out of the forests in mud and slipping snow. They're gone now. When we're all gone the mountain will grow again, the skinny straight-haired kids will drink to that, but then there won't be people left to work this mountain, to walk it, know it, fight it, hate it. Yep! We'll have timber, but we won't have men.