In High Places by Tom Morrisey

Author:Tom Morrisey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC042000, FIC020000
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2008-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

A piton may be bridged lengthwise across a wider crack and tied off with a length of webbing. In such a case, although the piton may still appear to be a piton, it is actually being employed as a chock.

The Eastern Cragman’s Guide to Climbing Anchors

THIRTEEN

When I got home, it was late afternoon, the shadows of the tall pines reaching like outstretched fingers across the slate roof of the old log house. My father’s VW was there, and with the windows of the Chevette down, I could hear the sporadic thuck of an axe even before I killed the ignition. I followed the sound and found him on the far side of the house: shirt off, chest glistening with sweat. He was using a tree stump as a block, and there was a pile of cut wood to his right, and an even larger pile of split wood to his left.

“Hey, Sport.” He shot me a smile and swung the axe, cleaving a bread loaf–size chunk of wood in two with a single stroke.

“I didn’t know you had work to be done around here.” Flustered, I went into the woodshed—the place was old enough to have one—and looked around for something with which to help him. The only other axe had a head that looked loose enough to be lethal, but I found a wedge and a sledge that looked serviceable, so I brought those outside.

“I didn’t have work when you left this morning,” my father told me. He swung the axe with a stifled grunt. “But a man stopped by with a truckload of oak, and he wasn’t asking much for it, and I figured we might as well put this warm weather to work drying some firewood. As much time as they’re taking to get that valve for the LP tank, who knows? We might need it. Besides, the furnace needs electricity to run, as well, and you know the old wires up in these hills. The power goes out if the wind blows the right way.”

That was right. We lost power at the shop and the Airstream, both, just about every time there was a thunderstorm. We kept a battery lantern in the trailer, and several oil lamps at the shop.

Yet I knew better. I knew that wasn’t really why my father had purchased all that firewood. I knew that the truck that had shown up had probably seen better days: sagging on its springs, and with a list to its bed. And I knew that its driver had probably been down on his luck, maybe an old man past his prime and too old for hiring, or a young man who looked as if he might have a family. I would have laid money on it; my father had, beyond the shadow of a doubt, bought the wood out of compassion, rather than need. And now, having acquired his truckload of wood, he was splitting it to justify the purchase.

But either way, it was work and,

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