Wild Life by Molly Gloss

Author:Molly Gloss
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Gracie

The woman, who wore denim overalls, sat on the veranda steps of the hotel with her forearms across her knees and her booted feet planted exactly as men plant them, immodestly apart. Her hair was cut short and her face, beneath a wool cap, was broad and mannish. She had no work and little money, and had come out here with scant idea of the arrangements usual in such places—a loggers’ hotel. She did not wish to announce her ignorance by asking the bartender or the cook, so her plan was simply to wait here on the hotel veranda until work should fall into her lap. In any case, the weather was uncommonly clear, with a slight breeze to carry the smoke away, which she considered the best sort of weather for waiting.

About halfway through the long morning a redheaded man in a logger’s get-up came out onto the veranda and stood near her, gazing uninterestedly at the new buildings along the muddy street, the cleared fields, the smoky hills beyond. One of his eyes was swollen and discolored; there was a deep gash which had filled with old, dark blood. He had been hit by the flying end of a broken wire rope.

“You been hurt?” she asked, with the intent of being friendly and in case it might lead to something. She believed he had been fighting, which was the usual course for loggers “blowin’ it in” on the weekend.

Now that she had brought his attention to it, he took an interest in his injury. “Well, I s’pose I was,” he said, giving an impression of mild surprise. The forefinger of his left hand gently explored the wound, which immediately opened and ran with fresh blood.

The woman brought a clean handkerchief from her vest pocket and offered it up. It was a large and plain-hemmed square, unembroidered, a man’s handkerchief. He considered and then accepted it, and pressed it to his eye.

“I just come down from Vancouver,” she said, which was a lie. “Have you heard of work for a peeler?” She had last worked as a prostitute in a coastal mill town and so had a general notion of the jobs to be had in the woods. She believed peeling was something she was strong enough to handle, and was determined to bluff her way onto a crew and then, in the Western way, learn the work by watching other fellows out of the corner of her eye, thus not ever having to admit to ignorance.

The man stood with the woman’s folded handkerchief pressed to his eye as he went on looking out at the shattered and cutover field in front of the hotel. He was well traveled, well educated; he had made and lost and remade a moderate fortune and had come West to oversee his investment in the logging business. There was still wildness to be found in this part of the country if you were willing to leave the cities and venture into the backwoods, and he had found himself charmed by the loggers’ rough and dangerous life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.